Misremembering VHS or VHS didn't look nearly as bad as people now claim it did

[Werewolf]

VHS is obviously way below HD formats like Blu-Ray. No argument there. But it wasn't nearly as bad as it's now often portrayed as.

[Brown Bear]

I was in no hurry to jump on the DVD bandwagon and leave my vhs collection behind. Eventually I had no choice but still love my vhs (and beta) tapes.

[Bruce Banner]

Our earliest top-loading VCRs had a really good picture quality.
Both Betamax and VHS.

[palitoy]

Yeah, I think a lot of folks forget that TV's have improved a lot as well but a nice new SP pre record of a movie on a tube TV was pretty sweet.

I blame stuff like "Tim and Eric" which sort of lampoons the VHS tape that's been recorded on 50 times for this perception now.

[Iron Mego]

My problem with VHS, and why I started buying laser discs then DVDs and then Blu-Ray, is more about aspect ratio than quality. Once I discovered that movies were shown, for the most part, in the wrong aspect ratio and were either presented pan and scan or "formatted to fit your TV"--which they still do unfortunately--it drove me crazy. Then of course you get into the open-matte problem, one notable example is Pee-Wee's Big Adventure when you can see the bike chain coming up through the bottom of his bag, which shows MORE of a movie than the director intended. That's when you see stuff like boom mics and tracks.
I cannot and will not jump on the VHS nostalgia bandwagon though. Movies in HD in the correct aspect ratio just make me happy. I remember watching Eraserhead on VHS and not being able to see half of the movie. When I finally saw it on the big screen (and now on my remastered DVD) it was a revelation. I found myself muttering, "Oh, that's what that was!" It's probably not the best example since the movie is really dark anyway, but man what a huge difference!

[Werewolf]

I cannot and will not jump on the VHS nostalgia bandwagon though.

This is actually about remembering the format in its correct historical context and not comically exaggerating its limitations. VHS picture quality obviously doesn't compare to Blu-Ray on a modern HDTV. But a good quality VHS tape on nice picture tube TV looked perfectly fine for the time.

[Iron Mego]

Just making a personal annotation, it's not directed at the context of your post.

[Werewolf]

I have one the last models of VCR/DVD combos made before the production of VCRs were stopped. It actually has HDMI output. VHS image quality through HDMI on an HDTV is soft as you would expect a standard definition format would look on an HDTV. But it also looks far better than you would expect and is perfectly watchable.

[cjefferys]

My problem with VHS, and why I started buying laser discs then DVDs and then Blu-Ray, is more about aspect ratio than quality. Once I discovered that movies were shown, for the most part, in the wrong aspect ratio and were either presented pan and scan or "formatted to fit your TV"--which they still do unfortunately--it drove me crazy. Then of course you get into the open-matte problem, one notable example is Pee-Wee's Big Adventure when you can see the bike chain coming up through the bottom of his bag, which shows MORE of a movie than the director intended. That's when you see stuff like boom mics and tracks.
I cannot and will not jump on the VHS nostalgia bandwagon though. Movies in HD in the correct aspect ratio just make me happy. I remember watching Eraserhead on VHS and not being able to see half of the movie. When I finally saw it on the big screen (and now on my remastered DVD) it was a revelation. I found myself muttering, "Oh, that's what that was!" It's probably not the best example since the movie is really dark anyway, but man what a huge difference!

Totally agree, original aspect ratio is very important to me, and it always drove me nuts to have videos that were pan and scanned, shown open matte, or otherwise altered (the only advantage to open matte is for movies that show more nudity that way, eg. "Mischief" ). Just before DVD showed up, some companies finally started releasing films on VHS that were letterboxed and I was thrilled about that (as at the time I couldn't afford a laserdisc player, which was the only way to see films in the correct aspect ratio at the time.

[Mikey]

I actually liked pan-and-scan much better than letterbox on VHS.

VHS letterbox had too much of a condensed picture --- you think you are seeing more but what you do see is lower quality than pan-and-scan.

A lot of people hated to rewind the tape but I always thought it was part of the event of watching the movie --- like having a ciggy after doing SOMETHING.... that little time is contemplation time thinking about what just happened

[Klosterheim]

Yes, VHS was fine. I remember thinking how lucky it was to be able to choose what you watched without commercials, and that things were available and not lost to time.

Some streaming video on Amazon looks like they directly copied the videocassette of the movie, so VCR's were better and are better than that.

My VHS Surround Sound Cassette of The Hunt For Red October looked and sounded great on tube television!

Later, Blade Runner Director's Cut was perfect on VHS.

VHS only went bad when they stopped using double tapes, like when they squeezed Fellowship of the Ring onto one cassette, which did not play for me. The Phantom Menace played, though.

I think The Color Purple was the first Widescreen/Letterbox VHS.

(I still remember the shouts of, 'Why did they put black bar lines on this?!'

[Iron Mego]

Totally agree, original aspect ratio is very important to me, and it always drove me nuts to have videos that were pan and scanned, shown open matte, or otherwise altered (the only advantage to open matte is for movies that show more nudity that way, eg. "Mischief" ). Just before DVD showed up, some companies finally started releasing films on VHS that were letterboxed and I was thrilled about that (as at the time I couldn't afford a laserdisc player, which was the only way to see films in the correct aspect ratio at the time.

I bought a bunch of letterboxed VHS tapes before switching to DVD. I was glad that DVD had kind of forced that issue. I stopped buying laser discs because they were expensive and bulky. Plus, most of the movies were on two of those big-assed discs! Or you had to flip it over, like a record.

[Mikey]

I had a SelectaVision player before I got a VHS and remember thinking quality wise I was taking a step down

[warlock664]

I for one was soooooo glad when DVDs came along. I was an early adopter of the format, and even purchased several movies before I did a player. I never owned that many pre-recorded VHS tapes; they were a pain in the *** to store, jumping to a specific scene in a movie was time-consuming and would eventually wear out the tape, and the tape would eventually degrade given time.
I'm as nostalgic for VHS tales as I am for 8-tracks.

[cjefferys]

I had a SelectaVision player before I got a VHS and remember thinking quality wise I was taking a step down

SelectaVision (aka RCA's CEDs) was a crappy format, we had one too. It used a needle, discs would wear out and start skipping and the image quality was about par with VHS. Laserdiscs on the other hand were superior in video and audio compared to VHS. But yeah, you had to flip/change discs in most cases when watching a feature film.