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

[Werewolf]

Heh, I remember D-VHS. It really was meant as a temporary stopgap

I'm not sure that's the case. Electronics giants like JVC, Hitachi, Panasonic and Philips probably don't spend massive amounts of time and money on something they think will only last a year or two. Think about it, this was a system that could play HD widescreen movies and record off of TV in HD years before Blu-ray. D-VHS systems were also backwards compatible with regular standard definition VHS tapes.

I still think it boils down to the the lack of support from studios. Only a hand full of studios supported the format and maybe released around 150 to 200 movies. I, personally, just don't think they wanted people to be able to easily and permanently archive HD content.

[cjefferys]

Here's a neat bit of VHS trivia. HD VHS tapes beat blu ray to the market by 4 years.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/79247/remember-when-hd-movies-came-vhs-tapes

I personally think the D-VHS format never got the support it deserved because studios were not keen on people being able to record and permanently archive HD content off of TV.

Heh, I remember D-VHS. It really was meant as a temporary stopgap for die hard videophiles until a disc based HD format hit the market (which unfortunately ended up becoming a format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD). I don't recall seeing D-VHS available in the mass market, that format was more niche than even laserdisc.

You probably have a point about studios not wanting people to record TV programs in HD, which also explains why Blu-ray recorders never became a thing here (although they were widely available in places like Japan, I remember seeing Blu-ray recorders for sale over there as early as 2005).

[tay666]

Probably did a little filtering during the conversion process.
Either that, or the DVD player is cleaning things up a bit when scaling the image.

[Mikey]

I've had a few VHS tapes converted to DVD's in the past and the video quality got better.

Is this a real thing or was my eyes just playing tricks on me ?

[tay666]

I think people misremembering/exaggerating the perceived poor quality of VHS must have been using really beat up tapes. You can't expect a vintage LP covered in scratches to sound as good as new and you can't expect a beat up wrinkled VHS tape to have perfect picture quality.

I agree.
Either that, or they are watching them on bad equipment. When a VHS player is going bad it can have a horrible picture.
That's usually the sign that it is getting ready to kick the bucket. Or that you need to clean and demagnetize the heads.

[Werewolf]

Here's a neat bit of VHS trivia. HD VHS tapes beat blu ray to the market by 4 years.

http://mentalfloss.com/article/79247/remember-when-hd-movies-came-vhs-tapes

I personally think the D-VHS format never got the support it deserved because studios were not keen on people being able to record and permanently archive HD content off of TV.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I've got several of the 60s Marvel toons on VHS. That's the first thing I'm watching!

[Werewolf]

Our office clean-out netted me a free VCR/DVD combo. I haven't had a working VCR in YEARS. Looking forward to watching some tapes soon!

Congrats! That is wicked!

[Earth 2 Chris]

Our office clean-out netted me a free VCR/DVD combo. I haven't had a working VCR in YEARS. Looking forward to watching some tapes soon!

Chris

[Werewolf]

I forgot to mention, another thing I think people aren't realizing is, many Blu Ray and DVD releases have been altered to "enhance" the picture quality. Things like upping the color saturation and artificially high digital noise reduction. Often to the point of altering what the movies actually looked like in their original theatrical runs.

[Werewolf]

It played perfectly and sounded incredible.

Yes, that's another thing people always fail to mention, how good VHS audio is.

I've been watching these old tapes on an HDTV, which would be a lot less forgiving to the format than the picture tube TVs they were designed for, and none of them have looked anywhere near as bad as these "authentic" VHS filters. Not even close. In fact they look quite nice. I think people misremembering/exaggerating the perceived poor quality of VHS must have been using really beat up tapes. You can't expect a vintage LP covered in scratches to sound as good as new and you can't expect a beat up wrinkled VHS tape to have perfect picture quality.

[Bruce Banner]

Yeah, I watched an old VHS release of "ThunderCats: Exodus" recently (the feature length release of the first few ThunderCats episodes with some extra footage)... and it looked pretty good, particularly for a cassette around 30 years old.

[Klosterheim]

I recently watched part of G.I. Joe The Movie (animated) on videocassette and the quality was excellent. It played perfectly and sounded incredible. It looked fantastic!

[Werewolf]

More "VHS effect."

This annoys me a smidge. I've been watching a lot of VHS tapes recently and none of them look anywhere near that bad. Not even the used ones. None are that washed out or glitchy.

[acrovader]

Most of the DVDs I have won't let me skip the previews at all.

I just fast forward through the previews when there are any.