V.H.S. and Betamax versus 8 m.m.

[old_tv_nut]

16mm film and full bandwidth standard definition analog TV were roughly the same quality.
VHS tape had less resolution than 16mm film, but better quality than 8mm film.

16 mm film shown on full bandwidth standard definition TV resulted in some reduction of overall sharpness, since each were contributing about the same amount of degradation.

35mm movie film, even fairly grainy high speed film, was pretty much transparent to full bandwidth analog TV, but the grain was quite visible when televised in high definition. This resulted in CBS in particular, and others, changing their production standards for scripted programs to be filmed on slower, fine grain 35mm stock. This in itself raised the production costs because more light was required.

In 1951, Otto Schade of RCA won the first SMPTE Sarnoff gold medal for his studies of the comparitive quality of film and TV. He developed the concept of trading resolution (film's forte) vs. sharpness (TV's forte), with the use of the JND or Just Noticeable Difference, and its calculation as the squared area under the modulation transfer function (MTF) curve. The MTF curve is a graph of the detail contrast of sine waves vs. frequency. Schade's work indicates how the perceived sharpness of analog TV can be roughly equal to or somewhat greater than 16 mm film, although the film has greater resolution.

Schade's work correctly predicts the visual sharpness comparison between VHS and full bandwidth analog TV or DVDs, as well as the comparisons to various film formats.
It also predicts the very sharp appearance of Kodachrome compared to other still films available at the time.