No market for S-VHS

[yamahaha]

I am a part time picker. An old fellow I know was one of those wedding video guys for years in the 80s and 90's. He had me over as he wants to sell all his gear.

I bought a few classic VCR's from him but the pro S-VHS gear ... I really didn't know what I would do with it. This guy spent thousands on this stuff I know. He has a few Cameras, playback decks, editing deck about 10 VCR's .... slide projectors, you know the ones that took pictures of negatives to place into the videos.

I don't like to break an old guys heart but I don't know anyone that uses any of this anymore.

I even called 2 film schools who told me they gave away all their old school stuff years ago. As in 10 years ago.

The short of this long wind is ... does anyone even collect anything but the good prosumer decks? I am hoping to get him taking a look at these answers because he is still in denial although he totally wants all this stuff out of the house. From what I can tell, its like my 486 computers. They were a few grand each at the time but worthless today.

[Dude111]

Welcome to Videokarma

I wouldnt like S-VHS I dont think...... I like reg VHS,it is just like you what you would experience from analogue cable and Its beautiful... (Its even NICER than analogue cable in a couple ways)

[Electronic M]

I used to grab S-VHS and S-VHS-ET decks from the thrifts for 3-10$ (cheaper than tape if you can't buy individual ones) three to five years ago. Back then I still time-shifted and archived on S-VHS-ET machines. I still keep the machines hooked up and have the tapes I made, but I don't use them much. Some decks still fetch decent money on ebay, and if he wants the most he can get out of them then ebay is the only way to go....Still there is no way he'll get even half the money he put in back even if he does well.

I would not trash the gear as it still has value, and is going to get harder to find as time goes on...Assuming it all still works.

[Ed in Tx]

Not sure why anyone wouldn't like S-VHS other than maybe just not aware of what it is/was. It's like VHS except it has superior horizontal resolution (230 lines std VHS vs 400 lines S-VHS) you can see on most any TV, much closer to actual broadcast quality. The S-VHS machines will play standard VHS just fine, sometimes better, and will have S-Video out to send cleaner separated Y-C video to a lot of 1987-88 and newer year model TVs that had S-Video inputs.

I got my first one a Panasonic in 1988 to record the picture quality I was getting on my big satellite dish. The old standard VHS just didn't cut it anymore. I have several hundred S-VHS tapes I recorded during about a 10 year period mostly off satellite. But I digress..

[Chip Chester]

I've got 8 or 10 Panasonic 7750's that are in climate-controlled storage waiting for a VHS resurgence similar to the recent vinyl bump. Here's hoping...

Chip

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

Not sure why anyone wouldn't like S-VHS other than maybe just not aware of what it is/was. It's like VHS except it has superior horizontal resolution (230 lines std VHS vs 400 lines S-VHS) you can see on most any TV, much closer to actual broadcast quality. The S-VHS machines will play standard VHS just fine, sometimes better, and will have S-Video out to send cleaner separated Y-C video to a lot of 1987-88 and newer year model TVs that had S-Video inputs.

I got my first one a Panasonic in 1988 to record the picture quality I was getting on my big satellite dish. The old standard VHS just didn't cut it anymore. I have several hundred S-VHS tapes I recorded during about a 10 year period mostly off satellite. But I digress..

I feel, they were superior as well. I found the tapes too expensive.
The consumer grade S-VHS will record on a non-S tape, at standard resolution. I even had a newer VCR, that played back S-VHS tapes, but wasn't an S-VHS machine.

[Ed in Tx]

Last time I bought a case of Fuji S-VHS H471S Pro tapes they were a little over $5 a piece. I consider that a bargain. Especially when I clearly recall paying $25 for a blank RCA T120 tape when I got my first VCR, and waiting in line at 4 AM to buy Scotch T120s at a 24 hour sale for a mere $9.99 ea! About 1981-82 was the first time I saw blank tapes for less than $10 ea.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Ed in Tx

Last time I bought a case of Fuji S-VHS H471S Pro tapes they were a little over $5 a piece. I consider that a bargain. Especially when I clearly recall paying $25 for a blank RCA T120 tape when I got my first VCR, and waiting in line at 4 AM to buy Scotch T120s at a 24 hour sale for a mere $9.99 ea! About 1981-82 was the first time I saw blank tapes for less than $10 ea.

That's a long time ago! I bought my first VCR, January 1982. I bought two tapes from the same dealer for $14.00 each. The were GTE branded with a Panasonic part number, which were made by TDK. Then I bought a couple of Memorex. Very poor compared to the GTE's.
Bad habits die hard. I just bought a mess of VHS tapes, at two different thrift stores.

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by dieseljeep

I feel, they were superior as well. I found the tapes too expensive.
The consumer grade S-VHS will record on a non-S tape, at standard resolution. I even had a newer VCR, that played back S-VHS tapes, but wasn't an S-VHS machine.

Yep they tried "Quasi" S-VHS playback on some later standard machines to make them compatible with S-VHS recordings. The feature supposedly a bigger deal in Japan where pre-recorded stuff was available in S-VHS. Never saw a commercial S-VHS pre-recorded movie or anything else myself.

An interesting thing unknown to most because the tapes were "expensive" was how a S-VHS tape could make a visible improvement in the Rec-PB quality of a standard VHS machine. It would play back with higher level from the heads through the head amplifier. Measurable at the "RF" test point where tape path alignments are monitored too. S-VHS tapes used to record on a standard VHS would playback several dB higher signal at the RF output from the head amp, and since it is an FM recording process the higher the signal the quieter and less noise in the end result. Less noise so finer picture details could be seen.

[Ed in Tx]

Originally Posted by Chip Chester

I've got 8 or 10 Panasonic 7750's that are in climate-controlled storage waiting for a VHS resurgence similar to the recent vinyl bump. Here's hoping...

Chip

The pinnacle, apex, zenith of S-VHS editing machines from Panasonic.

[Ed in Tx]

You can get a case of 10 H471S tapes shipped to your door for a little over $6 ea ( * no affiliation! *) ... get 'em while you can! THE best.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-10-Ne...item4627dad8de

[Jeffhs]

I've never seen or used S-VHS.

I still have and use my Panasonic PV-4022 VHS VCR, but I use it mainly to view old VHS tapes I recorded from cable TV years ago (I have a rack full of such tapes, about 40+ at last count, in my bedroom). The deck is set up and hooked up to record off the air, but I don't use that function often anymore since I can get streaming video and podcasts online just about any time.

The VCR doesn't get much use these days, however, since I have a Blu-ray player and a growing collection of DVDs, mostly '60s-'70s TV series. I am finding that most of the shows I have on VHS are and have been available on DVD for some time, so I guess my VHS VCR will get less and less use as time goes on. I can even see a day coming when I may put my VCR in storage indefinitely.

Standalone DVD/VHS players without RF tuners are available, if all you are interested in is watching old VHS tapes and DVDs. As long as my VCR still works, however, I won't get one of those combo units, as I have heard and read that they are made to last only a very short time, then something wears out or breaks and the thing is junk from that point on--like most everything else these days.

Sheeesh.

DVD/VHS players from makers such as Funai are among the worst, from what I have read. These players are often branded Magnavox, but don't let that name fool you. I had a Magnavox-branded VCR that lasted only about five years, then the heads (and, if I remember correctly, the transport mechanism) wore out. I bet that VCR was manufactured by Funai.

[yamahaha]

So the short of it is yes the stuff really is worthless save for a few prosumer models that fetch a hun or so.

Lots of these wedding video guys are sitting on their old stuff which might as well be buried.

[Chip Chester]

Pretty true. Even the higher-end 7750 decks with built-in TBC, line doublers, etc, fall short as the "universal, best VHS machine" because they only do high speed. They don't support extended play speeds at all.

I have a few of Panasonic 1980's (?) that do support all speeds, and do have a basic internal TBC, but in the end, it's still a VHS tape being played back.

Chip

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by yamahaha

So the short of it is yes the stuff really is worthless save for a few prosumer models that fetch a hun or so.

Lots of these wedding video guys are sitting on their old stuff which might as well be buried.

I'd never trash pro-quality gear like that!...Unless it was broken and even then I'd make sure it was not a simple fix first. He could probably get 50-300$ a piece for them if they work well and are desirable models.
Also why WASTE any quality item that still works!?....That is one thing I hate about my generation, we needlessly trash anything that is not the latest and greatest, or new and perfect unless it can be sold for a 3-6 digit price...I'd call it heartlessly utilitarian, but many of my generation even trash stuff that it would be in their best interest financially to fix...So it seems like a dumb rich kid thing.

As a college electrical engineering student I consider S-VHS superior (for non HD content) to any digital format. I had a VERY hard time telling the difference between live analog cable and S-VHS recording of it. There were only three reasons I stopped archiving favorite cable shows on S-VHS: the tapes are bulky, DVD-Rs are cheap in bulk, and our cable started showing more and more digital compression artifacts which reduced the quality advantage of recording in analog (ie not adding those artifacts during recording)...

I still look for cheap S-VHS decks when I'm at thrift stores, and save any models I don't already have 1-4 examples of (I just don't see many any more).