Got To Love VHS as A Format!

Sure we have a DVD player in the house, and I hav maybe 60 DVD titles. Ok maybe a few more.

But recently a local thrift store opened up and began selling VHS tapes for $2 a piece. So I straightened up the VHS collection, and reorganized the shelves. I also cleaned up the trusty Sony VHS machine, darn thing was a $600 dollar player in the early ninties. Over the next few months I add another fifty or so great VHS tapes to the collection. Notables buys include a couple of seasons of the X files, the Mad Max triliogy, and several great action movies. Then yestereday we were at the local Goodwill, and someone had donated several hundred VHS tapes. I had the choice of many great movies, and had to limit myself to thrity or so. For right around seventy bucks I made a huge addition to the movie collection. All the tapes were in great condition, although a couple needed to be rewound a few times to loosen up the tape handling system.

Well I guess I am a real cheapskate when it comes to my video system. No surround. A plain 31 inch Akai flat panneled wide screen. $70 Phillips DVD player, and the trusty old Sony. But at least I have a nice little video collection to enjoy watching.

Regards
Mister Pig

My VCR still gets used plenty!

I scour the thrifts for stuff that's still not on DVD and record something from TNT almost every day.

We bought several large boxes of tapes (couple hundred tapes) that someone had recorded throughout the 80's, they are complete with vintage commercials. :yes:

The VCR is a Sony that's about 5 years old, didn't figure it would last a year because it was so light and flimsy feeling but it's still working perfect! :thmbsp:

I think the picture quality of VHS is crummy at best but it never bothered me much having grown up on B&W TV, fringe antenna reception and the worst cable system in the world (Warner Cable)

Not to mention that VHS HiFi Audio is a very, very good recording format. Beta HiFi, too. Analog (FM) audio with 100 dB dynamic range. Quite a bit of music dubbed to video HiFi here at Casa Hardy. Some live recordings, too.

I've got two in my house that get daily use for over-the-air timeshifting :yes: Problem is, one died recently, and when I went to Wal-Mart, the only VCR without a DVD player in it was a $40 Emerson cheapie:yuck: It's going to be interesting to see what happens when analog broadcasting dies and I have to try to timeshift via a DTV->Analog converter...
Tom

Suggestion, based on having worked a little with the stuff: See if you can snag a professional Matsushita (JVC or Panasonic)-built VHS or S-VHS VCR with a built-in TBC (time base corrector), or even one of JVC's consumer S-VHS machines with a TBC. VHS can look pretty good if you massage it enough. Still won't have any more than about 240 lines of horizontal resolution, but a TBC makes the raster hold still while you do your massaging, which makes a deeper massage possible.

Just a thought.

mhardy6647 said:

Not to mention that VHS HiFi Audio is a very, very good recording format. Beta HiFi, too. Analog (FM) audio with 100 dB dynamic range. Quite a bit of music dubbed to video HiFi here at Casa Hardy. Some live recordings, too.

Click to expand...

Funny ain't it, that it's actually a better Audio format than Video.

Eric H said:

Funny ain't it, that it's actually a better Audio format than Video.

Click to expand...

Yep, and that disconnect between the suddenly better audio and the video--

It's hard to get the feel of it now, but before about 1984, TV network audio was AM-radio quality and of course mono. It matched the typical picture on a home receiver. All was well, as it had been since Eisenhower.

But after '84 and the introduction of stereo, whoom. Suddenly the picture had to catch up, and eventually it did. I like to think the improved audio had a subliminal dissatisfaction effect on everyone and helped drive the market to things like comb filters and component video.