The official "I still use VHS" thread

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Dude111

I dont see why you think the page is a joke.....

VHS is analog and ANALOG HAS ALWAYS BEEN NICER!! (The sound is nicer and a true analog picture is quite nice too!!)

I have cable and DirecTV so i have to look @ compromised video and its horrible! (Sound isnt as natural sounding either (compromised) (I dont care to watch much of it to be quite frank with you about it!))

Also I would rather watch movies I have loved ALL MY LIFE in the same analogue format I have always loved them in! (I want them to look/sound EXACTLY THE SAME) I want them to be THE BEST THEY CAN BE and its sad this digital crap has infested our world.... Its total garbage!!


Its sad today: People are satisfied with LESS and its quite sad.........

The single scratch ruining a disc argument in that article is complete rubbish, but the rest is fairly accurate.

I'll add the following arguments to the topic to stimulate thought. Because DVDs are compressed the video compression usually has a threshold for how small of motion it will capture...This reduces noise, but also causes problems like causing a smooth pan to become choppy, and causing a distant characters mouth not to move on some words or not move at all after compression. basically reducing motion resolution.

One thing to keep in mind is that regular VHS has resolutions below that of the NTSC standard so a properly mastered DVD will likely have more resolution on a stationary image and possibly less noise. This can be noticeable even if your TV is a NTSC unit as mine are, especially if it is one of the higher performance models.

Both methods have their drawbacks, but I rather average noise in my head than deal with compression artifacts. Another thing to consider is that there are better analog formats than VHS. S-VHS, LaserDisc, SuperBetamax, ED Betamax, and W-VHS all have better resolution than regular VHS, and in the case of W-VHS analog HD resolutions were the goal of the design!

When it comes to prerecorded stuff analog may never be fully displaced in my entertainment system. Though it has been displaced in my archiving of broadcast programs. Since DVD-Rs are cheaper than tape(and easier to find), smaller, and all broadcast material I can get is hopelessly compressed anyway so the main advantage of tape is not achievable....It is interesting to go back to before the compression was so egregious and compare my early DVD recordings of TV shows to the S-VHS-ET recordings I made. I literally ran a DVD recorder and a VCR and taped the same thing on two different formats for a while before deciding DVD better served the purpose. S-VHS in SP is virtually indistinguishable from DVD as far as resolution of material recorded off a cable TV source...S-VHS is especially hard to distinguish from the cable source since it lacks the added compression artifacts of DVD.