My Trading Guidelines

Updated 11/8/2006

Some of my Trading rules, things you should agree to before trading with me. This is pretty simple, but I have had many problems trading in the past couple of years, one of many reasons why I have almost stopped trading completely. I ask simply that you must do the following to trade with me:

  1. You must send DVD's or tapes to me first. I really only make an exception if you have been recommended to me by a trusted trader I have dealt with in the past.
  2. You must use one of the following brands of blank tape only: Maxell, TDK, JVC, Sony, FUJI, or BASF, no others brands will be accepted without my prior approval. I will use the same brands(usually Maxell), all standard grade tapes! For DVD's I prefer only DVD-R discs and most major brands seem to be acceptable, I generally use ony Taiyo-Yuden blank discs.
  3. All DVD's or tapes must include a detailed description of the contents, such as name of program, title, date, and description, or guest stars when appropriate. Basically all the information you have available on the shows. This should be written or typed on a piece of paper and taped to the box, no labels should be put on the discs or tapes!
  4. DVD's and Tapes should be at least 100 minutes full. For example, two 1 hour shows without commercials. If there is room for another 30 minute program, contact me for a request. Why waste the space?
  5. If something is POOR Quality, please advise me when I request it in trade. I do not like to grade the quality of things simply because grading scales are very subjective and two people seldom agree on how to grade someting, but if there are major flaws I have tried to make notes of them.
  6. If one of your programs has an on screen timing strip or other unusual markings, please note that on your list before anyone(like myself) asks for it. Obviously on screen station logos are common these days, I'm talking about something that you would NOT normally expect to see on a recording.
  7. I will mail your requests to you after reviewing what you have sent to me.
  8. Now that DVD recorders are cheap, everyone thinks they are an expert on recording a DVD. Unfortunately many are recorded on machines that do not have a hard drive or ANY editing features and that makes the finished product look like absolute crap, basically a glorified copy of a VHS tape. I only want to trade DVD's with you if you have a recorder with a hard drive or if you author DVD's on your computer, so I know that you can do proper editing and insert chapter marks, this is how I make mine. If you can't do this, I would prefer to just trade on VHS and I'll make my own DVD's.
  9. The next problem with DVD's is that in the world of VHS trading, it was always for equal time, I would send you one tape of approximately two hours of stuff and you would send me the same in return. Now with DVD's a lot of DVD traders just trade complete discs, using DVD duplicators or computers to copy the discs. In this scenario you get a complete disc that may have some programs that you didn't specifically ask for. These traders do not trade for equal time, but disc for disc. I may send you a disc with 2 hours on it and you may send me one with only one hour on it, but we both spent about the same amount of time copying the disc, so I consider that to be fair. The problem comes in when the DVD traders want to trade for what I have on VHS and I have to convert the tape to DVD, which is much more time consuming, again because I author the disc with menus and chapters, I do not just copy from VHS to a blank DVD. My general rule is I get 3 discs of yours to one of mine if I have to convert your requests from VHS to DVD, but this is negotiable, occasionally I will ask for more or less depending on the requests. Some people feel this is fair and a few feel I am asking for too much, but those are my terms, at least for now, you don't have to agree to them and you don't have to trade with me.
  10. Perhaps my number one pet peeve on DVD recording is in the analog conversions to digital. About 6 months ago I received a DVD from a trader. I started to play the disc and I saw another menu from a Panasonic DVD Recorder, then I saw that menu start(someone hit the play button), and that showed yet another menu from a different DVD recorder, which in turn showed one more menu from another DVD recorder. So this program had been converted from analog to digital and back 5 times before I ever got my copy, and probably several times on VHS before it ever made it to a DVD, no wonder it didn't look very good! If you have a lot of stuff on DVD like this, you really need to learn how to make a copy on a PC, or buy some inexpensive DVD Authoring software that will let you take specific segments from a disc and produce a nice finished disc. You can even buy a simple 1 to 1 CD/DVD Duplicator on Ebay for less than $200. If you want to author DVD's on your PC I would highly recommend Tsunami DVD Author Pro from Pegasys Inc. for those who are beginners in making DVD's on their computers. It's very easy to learn and relatively inexpensive(less than $100). It won't do absolutely everything that some of the really expensive programs will do, but I've been very pleased with the results I've gotten so far.

I hope that all this doesn’t make me sound a little like a pain to deal with, I really try not to be, but I guess I am turning into a bit of a grumpy old man and I'm a bit set in my ways. However in the past 2 years consider these examples of what I have gotten from some other collector’s in trade:

1.      A Box of 10 tapes, show titles scribbled on Post-It Notes, barely legible. Several tapes were not full and this trader taped two episodes of a program TWICE! Everything included on those 10 tapes would have fit on 8 tapes, so I got screwed out of 4 hours worth of stuff.

2.      Another box from a different trader also had titles on Post-It Notes, but I could at least read them. Unfortunately only half the tapes had Post-It Notes, and I was on my own on the others. Even when contacted by email the trader said he didn’t know the titles or the order that the shows were recorded on for the unlabeled tapes.

3.      Several traders sent me items that they claimed to be “perfect quality” copies that would be major upgrades to the poor quality copies I already had in my collection. When I received them, not only were they not upgrades to my own copies, but they were probably a few grades worse. I’m not perfect when noting poor quality items on my trading list, but If I make a mistake I will certainly make good on it and note the quality problems the next time I update my web page.

4.      Memorex tapes, people insist on using them because they are cheap. I have had many bad experiences with Memorex tape and have avoided them for over 20 years. I believe I have bought only two of them, about 25 years ago when that was all I could find, and not many stores sold blank videotapes in 1980-1981. I am told they have improved greatly, but I have heard many audio dropouts on some of the ones I have been sent, so I still do not trust them. Do not send me MEMOREX TAPE!!

5.      DVD's with all kinds of problems(see above)

Anyway, I could go on and on with other problems, but you get the idea by now. This pretty much states what I will have to ask you to follow as my trading policy if you want to deal with me. Any questions, just ask. Thanks.
   

Tom