Videotaping Your Christmas

Personal camcorders were still new to Americans of 1985. The Post suggested how to make the most out of your new VCR during the holidays.

Photos courtesy RCA (1985)

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Remember before you begin shooting: have plenty of tape on hand. It is better to have one tape left over than to run out just before Christmas dinner. Second, shoot at the highest speed available. This uses more tape, but it gives a better quality to the final product. [And] the better the original, the better the copy.

Don’t chance taping dinner over the Christmas Eve service — when you finish with a tape, break off the tab so that it can’t be recorded over. Identify the occasion every time you begin shooting. You as the camera person can simply say, “Christmas 1985,” so the camera microphone can pick it up.

You may do no more all Christmas day than point the camera and shoot, but you will cherish for a lifetime the pictures you record. Every year the tape ages it will become more valuable.

—“Videotaping Your Christmas”
by Roger Bartley,
December 1, 1985

Read the entire article ‘Videotaping Christmas’ from the December 1985 issue of The Saturday Evening Post

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