What is the fundamental difference between DVDs and VHS?
You can unspool a video, hold it up to the light, and see the images portrayed on them. Hold up any DVD, and all you will find plastic.
And this does make a difference. If the image on the videotape is visceral enough, perhaps two people kissing, or the moment a fist hits a chin in a boxing match, you can still have a reaction even to this static picture.
Because videos capture a tiny bit of the emotion in every frame. This is why people complain they felt funny under the lights of video stores. And that’s fine, and interesting titbit about recording different mediums, but not very serious.
It did not matter until we started throwing them away.
You cannot recycle video. It ends up in the landfill, unspooling amongst tin cans, nappies and ice cream wrappers. Millions of miles of forgotten tape. What do you think happens when all those emotional moments rub against each other?
Those tiny synaptic responses reach out and find each other. It is an automatic process, like a mating call. And when they find each other, the tape bind together in one massive montage of emotion.
This is enough to spark life. Ropes of mylar form arms and legs in the junkyard. They pull themselves up through the garbage, and into the sunshine. You can spot them if the light hits them the right way.
But be careful. Because these are beings of true resonance, made of pictures designed to give you a reaction. A million frames of footage can be upsetting and hilarious at the same time, and your brain does not like that at all.
So there is the difference between DVDs and VHS. You have nothing to fear from DVDs.