Are these tapes getting more expensive these day? True Lies & Alien for example .. .
I know asking is easy but some titles are fetching serious money. It's not like decent condition players are easy to find. Most players offered are 30000u models lacking dts output or have the common PS fault. I find it very hard getting my hands on a spare dts capable player.

Well I do believe that there are two reasons for the prices to be climbing recently ....

1) Just like the LD prices recently the D-VHS tapes have found a new market with the millennials and hipsters that think dead media is awesome. So they are getting into the market and paying whatever an ebay seller is listing a tape at.

2) You have to give some of the blame to ebay resellers and the way that they can use the ebay past pricing against us. It is used a lot more in the LD market though.

But to be fair....it is still a very nitch market....and when you figure in the fact that the supply of the tapes were very limited to begin with you do get a market that tries to gouge it's self!

Just my opnion....

I completed my dvhs collection a few years ago and stocked on late players but I will buy one more. They were steadyly available a couple of years ago but lately none. I see 40000u time to time which does dts. A sleeper is a marantz mv8300 which is a 40000u clone but in black.

Some tapes are so rare and expensive. Bourne tape was probably the hardest to find and most expensive.

I see a tape like Alien go for 150-200 USD
I got mine for about 40 USD delivered at my doorstep.
True lies fetches some money.... Can see why... only way to enjoy it in HD

On the lookout myself for a spare dts player. Would love a Marantz since it comes in black.
Love my Hm-dh5U but I fear the day something goes wrong with it. I even rewind my tapes with a regular vcr.

I know a chap who "collects" VHS stuff & uses a BUSH VHS unit that never plays anything now, only used to rewind his tapes - must over time save quite a bit of wear & tear on the machines.

Cheers .

Scary, the thought of a VCR, -Digital or otherwise- that doesn't hardly last 15 years without developing reparable, though debilitating issues,
what when we have thirty-year-old VHS and S-VHS models out there that are still humming on strong to this day, some with minimal maintenance, even.

they well and truly don't make things like they used to...

True,

I might try to contact JVC about spare parts for those few machines they produced. I'm afraid getting spare parts might be even more of a challenge than keeping a ld player running altough I must say a LD player is very reliable and not that difficult to repair. Enough spare parts around myself and finding a donor unit isn't that much of a problem IMHO.
When I find a faulty dvhs deck they tend to fetch a lot of money.... 150-300 USD is big bucks for a faulty unit that might get me the parts one day I need. Never sure what is wrong when you buy a faulty device.

yeah, DVHS decks just weren't on the market for very long. there just isn't the sort of vast infrastructure of parts and service that even S-VHS enjoyed.

even worse, DVHS being a format of the age of absolute disposability in the CE market...

Unfortunately it seems like most collection based hobbies are getting more expensive. You do have a wave of people in their 20s and 30s who are discovering this technology for the first time, they find it "quaint" and they have disposable income so they'll pay whatever ebay prices dictate. Definitely a seller's market right now. I admittedly paid $70 for my copy of Alien, though knowing what it goes for now I'm okay with that.

To quote Scotty in Star Trek III, the more you overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to clog up the drain.

After many years the Bourne Identity tape showed up for the first time last week. The auction ended at $301. Not as crazy as some of the late LDs but still really high.

There was a Bourne in a lot with a 40k local pickup that sold a few weeks ago for $150, too. BTW the auction ended at $306

Those went unnoticed. I completed my collection a while back. I don’t look anymore. I am missing a few hd net titles but only if they show up somewhat reasonably priced.

And this is what happens when there is no market.
All the collectors pickup what they want or need and when there are no others left people just keep or sit on what they have and don't worry.

There were a few markets of stuff that I deal and collect in, I've seen it before.
All of the ones who want it get it and then there are no others left.

I am slowly selling my dvhs collection. I picked up the "better" versions on blu or UHD meanwhile. I don't like parting with them but then again... they sit in a closset unplayed ... the spare players are sitting there unused... at the rate I watch a tape I feel I do not need them anymore.
Main focus has always been my treasured laserdiscs. Recently I bought a small part of a huge collection of laserdiscs.... that man is a horder. He bought about every laserdisc he could buy back in the day leaving him with a life not long enough to enjoy it all. It was sad in a way to see. I have been very selective about buying from him. Would not want to end up with a pile of... much of everything that is

I only have Alien, the HD Video demo and the cleaning tape though I did have some blanks, Ghost Dog and Brotherhood of the Wolf which I got rid of since I didn't want them anymore. The selection for me has always been rather small to want to own anyway. I do love the VCR and use it for the component output which is great but I wonder sometimes how much of an improvement does the later ones with HDMI have.

No improvements for dvhs tape just convenience of hdmi.