Yeah, interesting. To answer your questions, they varied. So, as a family, we have had dozens to hundreds of video tapes, some played a lot, some played a little, in VCRs, some eaten up, some repaired, some destroyed. Excellent video and audio quality for some of the tapes and less so on some of the others, especially ones from the 1980's.

VHS Effect Filter

I understand that acquiring filters is tempting. So, if you got the money, then have at it. That's what I'd say to anybody. But at the same time, I would probably find a free version of the filter or find a way to design my own filter or I would send my video out of my computer and into my VCR and record it on my VCR and then record it back and forth from VCR to VCR to degrade the value until the video starts to look old. So, if I really wanted to do, I would try to experiment using different video editors and I would Google it to see if others have done it. If all of that fails, assuming I don't want to just buy the filter, I would do the VCR option.