What do you remember ever taping off the TV

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  • mal2poolmal2pool Posts: 5,690
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    Remember taping music from the tv and radio with a cassette recorder? I had a Waltham Solid State cassette (my first ever). I loved it....hard for everyone to keep quiet in the room though...my budgie was in the background singing along

    Use to record music from The Osmonds cartoon series and some tv themes ..
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,043
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    jalfrezi wrote: »
    My first recorder in 1981 was a Sony C7 which was one of the top Betamax recorders at the time. It was a great machine. I was into all forms of motorsport and used to record anything in that line. Other regulars were the Kenny Everett Video Show and M*A*S*H.

    I completely forgot about Kenny Everett.

    I remember taping his final series and I had hoped of another one after they gave us new credits.
  • D.PageD.Page Posts: 1,562
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    flashman1 wrote: »
    Back then I found SVHS to be way too expensive and it didn't really make that much difference although I did get a couple of Panasonic SVHS machines several years later when they dropped to about £150 .
    I used SVHS only for series 24 and 25 when they switched to widescreen.
    Unfortunately when it came time to copy them to dvd I didn't have the SVHS machines anymore so although my Panny machine of the time would play SVHS it only played in standard quality .
    I have the tapes so I'm curious to see how much difference it would show - it didn't seem to be very much at the time of recording.
    To be fair , SVHS was only ever promoted to show its best quality when used with an SVHS camcorder - off air recordings couldn't really cut it

    This is an interesting topic.

    If it is the case that you have only ever used Panasonic S-VHS decks, then it would not surprise me, in the least, that you would form the conclusion that S-VHS does not really give much in the way of picture quality improvement over VHS. In my experience, I always found Panny S-VHS decks to be quite unimpressive, and wishy-washy, in S-VHS mode, and so, I would certainly have formed the same conclusion.

    However, with other brands - and in my experience - particularly with JVC S-VHS decks, it was is a different kettle of fish. I had (or more accurately, still have) a couple of JVC HR-S7000 decks. This S-VHS model incorporated 'Pro-Digi' circuitry, which improved the S-VHS picture further still, and it is no exaggeration to say that when I first saw its recorded S-VHS picture, it took my breath away. Quite superb, and miles better than VHS.

    As Pro-Digi is a purely record-only process, the picture quality improvement is contained in the S-VHS recording as such, and, therefore, you can still see all the benefits when playing the tapes back on any S-VHS deck. This is why I quite recently bought a couple of Panny S-VHS decks, purely to act as playback machines, for my large collection of tapes recorded on my HR-S7000's. My Pannys play them back in superb quality.
  • D.PageD.Page Posts: 1,562
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    Id be happy to do the job for you.

    That is kind of you but, honestly, I'd have to do it myself. I did embark on such a project a few years ago, but abandoned it as I noticed that my DVD recorders were digitising the material with the odd dropped frame. I am not comfortable with the idea of digitising my recordings, then throwing away the original tapes only to find that the copies are marred by things such as dropped frames. I really need to monitor the footage as its being digitised, so that I can look out for such nasties. Thanks all the same, though.
  • flashman1flashman1 Posts: 203
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    D.Page wrote: »
    This is an interesting topic.

    If it is the case that you have only ever used Panasonic S-VHS decks, then it would not surprise me, in the least, that you would form the conclusion that S-VHS does not really give much in the way of picture quality improvement over VHS. In my experience, I always found Panny S-VHS decks to be quite unimpressive, and wishy-washy, in S-VHS mode, and so, I would certainly have formed the same conclusion.

    However, with other brands - and in my experience - particularly with JVC S-VHS decks, it was is a different kettle of fish. I had (or more accurately, still have) a couple of JVC HR-S7000 decks. This S-VHS model incorporated 'Pro-Digi' circuitry, which improved the S-VHS picture further still, and it is no exaggeration to say that when I first saw its recorded S-VHS picture, it took my breath away. Quite superb, and miles better than VHS.

    As Pro-Digi is a purely record-only process, the picture quality improvement is contained in the S-VHS recording as such, and, therefore, you can still see all the benefits when playing the tapes back on any S-VHS deck. This is why I quite recently bought a couple of Panny S-VHS decks, purely to act as playback machines, for my large collection of tapes recorded on my HR-S7000's. My Pannys play them back in superb quality.
    I had a JVC SVHS deck too and if anything it was worse than the Panny models.
    But I wasn't that disappointed with the quality because it was exactly how it had been described by the What Video experts of the time .
    Even when the system first appeared buyers were warned that off air recordings would not benefit a great deal and the SVHS format was primarily for camcorders .
    When This Morning did a format comparison Madely used an SVHS camcorder in the studio that day and I was very surprised at the quality of the playback , but I never bothered with a camcorder other than standard VHS as I didn't feel it was worth it.
    The format of UK transmissions delivered by an RF cable simply didn't have the necessary picture information to deliver images of the quality that SVHS was able to from the right source
  • D.PageD.Page Posts: 1,562
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    flashman1 wrote: »
    I had a JVC SVHS deck too and if anything it was worse than the Panny models.
    But I wasn't that disappointed with the quality because it was exactly how it had been described by the What Video experts of the time .
    Even when the system first appeared buyers were warned that off air recordings would not benefit a great deal and the SVHS format was primarily for camcorders .

    Hmmm, that’s interesting. I’m curious to know which JVC model you had. Maybe it was an early model before the kind of advances I’ve spoken about. The JVC HR-S7000EK came out in about 1995. I take it your deck and TV were connected via S-Video.

    Curiously, I’ve since seen on the internet that Japan’s very first S-VHS deck, way back in 1987, was also labelled as the JVC HR-S7000, but for the avoidance of any confusion, let me explain that this early NTSC JVC HR-S7000 deck which was available in Japan, and my PAL JVC HR-S7000 decks are totally different JVC S-VHS decks, from different time periods!.

    When I got my first HR-S7000, I already had a growing collection of classic sitcoms on VHS (Only Fools, Fawlty Towers, Porridge etc). I could immediately see that this deck’s S-VHS off-air picture quality was so good, I had no hesitation in ditching the VHS recordings and starting to collect my favourite sitcoms again, this time using this deck in S-VHS. The picture quality of these recordings were much closer to the original broadcast than any VHS deck I had ever used was capable of.

    In my first VT operator job, my immediate boss, the Technical Director, had always been unimpressed with S-VHS. We had banks of exclusively Panny S-VHS decks so I wasn’t that surprised. Back then, I had a Panny NV-HS1000 and the S-VHS picture quality was disappointing. When I bought the HR-S7000, soon after it first came out, I advised him to get one as I was sure he would change his views once he saw this deck’s off-air recorded S-VHS picture quality. He, soon after, bought himself one. He was in agreement with me that it was a very impressive S-VHS picture.
  • mal2poolmal2pool Posts: 5,690
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    Ferguson VideoStar was the very best you could buy at the time. Top of the range. Superb pic...heavy monster of a video. I had an hitachi also but that was poor
  • Glenn AGlenn A Posts: 23,794
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    Had a 1985 JVC VHS machine with full remote control for 12 years and it was almost faultless.
    Now this sounds sad, but I used to tape The Hitman and Her, just to laugh at the awful dancers and banter from Pete Waterman. I wish someone would repeat it as acid house certainly never happened in the clubs on here.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 227
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    I used to tape Neighbours before it was moved to an evening slot after getting hooked on it during the school holidays - along with a lot of others no doubt
  • flashman1flashman1 Posts: 203
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    D.Page wrote: »
    Hmmm, that’s interesting. I’m curious to know which JVC model you had. Maybe it was an early model before the kind of advances I’ve spoken about. The JVC HR-S7000EK came out in about 1995. I take it your deck and TV were connected via S-Video.

    Curiously, I’ve since seen on the internet that Japan’s very first S-VHS deck, way back in 1987, was also labelled as the JVC HR-S7000, but for the avoidance of any confusion, let me explain that this early NTSC JVC HR-S7000 deck which was available in Japan, and my PAL JVC HR-S7000 decks are totally different JVC S-VHS decks, from different time periods!.

    When I got my first HR-S7000, I already had a growing collection of classic sitcoms on VHS (Only Fools, Fawlty Towers, Porridge etc). I could immediately see that this deck’s S-VHS off-air picture quality was so good, I had no hesitation in ditching the VHS recordings and starting to collect my favourite sitcoms again, this time using this deck in S-VHS. The picture quality of these recordings were much closer to the original broadcast than any VHS deck I had ever used was capable of.

    In my first VT operator job, my immediate boss, the Technical Director, had always been unimpressed with S-VHS. We had banks of exclusively Panny S-VHS decks so I wasn’t that surprised. Back then, I had a Panny NV-HS1000 and the S-VHS picture quality was disappointing. When I bought the HR-S7000, soon after it first came out, I advised him to get one as I was sure he would change his views once he saw this deck’s off-air recorded S-VHS picture quality. He, soon after, bought himself one. He was in agreement with me that it was a very impressive S-VHS picture.
    I didn't get any SVHS models until quite late as the prices were too high . Toward the end of the 90's prices plummeted , presumably as VHS as a format was on its last legs with dvd coming in so it was quite a late JVC model.
    All SVHS machines were connected using S-video with separate audio leads.
    The picture from SVHS was better with superior stability , less noise etc but it wasn't a patch on the actual quality that SVHS was capable of when fed the right source.
    Even when the machines went cheap I didn't think the actual improvement was good enough to justify the extra cost . If I'd bought an SVHS camcorder it would have been a different matter
    mal2pool wrote: »
    Ferguson VideoStar was the very best you could buy at the time. Top of the range. Superb pic...heavy monster of a video. I had an hitachi also but that was poor
    Ferguson Videostar was a brand only in name.
    All Ferguson machines were JVC models with a Ferguson badge on .
    At the advent of video Thorn EMI owned most of the UK rental shops including multi broadcast , DER , Radio Rentals and Visionhire and as the prices of VHS decks was still quite high in the early days they were primarily supplied as rental machines so Thorn had a deal with JVC but used the well known Ferguson name to market them.
    As Thorn were able to buy in these machines in huge numbers they were able to sell them too at cheaper prices than the actual JVC models available from specialists.

    Betamax was largely ignored by the rental sector but for the first few years machines were mostly rented and by the time prices became affordable to buy the majority were committed to VHS which is why VHS beat Beta in the UK.
    Even in the first 2 or 3 years of the 80's when the market was growing video shops that supplied movies on Beta to rent were few and far between.
  • The RhydlerThe Rhydler Posts: 4,494
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    Had a few of my VHS tapes copied over the years, various episodes of stuff, after a few more things, notably two fantasy football episodes, and some They Think Its All Over.
  • GRCGRC Posts: 202
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    retroguy wrote: »
    What do you remember taping off tv in the VHS days

    And what was the first thing you recorded via Sky Plus or TiVo

    First VHS was Gary Moore, a BBC Concert from Cheltenham.

    I've never owned a Sky Plus or TiVo....
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 11,348
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    Mainly lots of different children's TV programmes when I was a kid.
  • doublefourdoublefour Posts: 5,978
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    Red Dwarf, Doctor Who (1980s and ones from 2005 onwards), Only Fools and Horses, Lovejoy also Hustle and Waking the Dead more recently. I remember I recorded Saint and Greavsie once! :)
  • Tom-Bennett.Tom-Bennett. Posts: 2,558
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    Big brother 3 final, still have it on VHS

    Can't bring myself to watch it now

    Jade :cry:
  • barbelerbarbeler Posts: 23,827
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    My overriding memory of them is of appalling picture quality and forever fiddling about with the tracking in an attempt to make it vaguely watchable. Then there was rental roulette, when you'd go to whatever was the forerunner of Blockbuster in the hope of getting a tape that hadn't already been ruined.
  • lloys-strachanlloys-strachan Posts: 1,952
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    Live Aid with the stereo soundtrack from Radio One (before BBC tv had stereo nicam).
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,043
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    D.Page wrote: »
    That is kind of you but, honestly, I'd have to do it myself. I did embark on such a project a few years ago, but abandoned it as I noticed that my DVD recorders were digitising the material with the odd dropped frame. I am not comfortable with the idea of digitising my recordings, then throwing away the original tapes only to find that the copies are marred by things such as dropped frames. I really need to monitor the footage as its being digitised, so that I can look out for such nasties. Thanks all the same, though.

    Why would you need to do that when I would happily do that for you for free.

    I can fine tune DVd converting programs spot on so this sort of thing doesnt happen.

    I would happily convert the tapes to dvd for you and then mail back both the DVD and Tapes and reimburse you the postage costs it took to originally send the tapes to me so you wouldnt be losing out at all.
  • The RhydlerThe Rhydler Posts: 4,494
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    Such a shame you ain't got the FFL episodes I need Davey
  • andy1231andy1231 Posts: 5,100
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    Never bought a player untill they became much cheaper. First ones we had were rented from various high street outlets. We had to keep getting the repair man out as the kids kept "posting" things into the machine such as jam sandwiches, milk etc.
  • andy1231andy1231 Posts: 5,100
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    Davey, just read your post about converting VHS to DVD. What do you use ? I have a Video/DVD recorder and its realy simple. You just put a blank DVD in one side and the tape you want to copy in the other, press play/copy and hey presto the DVD records whatever is on the tape. No loss of quality or loss of frames etc. I have converted all my home movies from my camcorder this way and they are great.
  • The RhydlerThe Rhydler Posts: 4,494
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    What sort of stuff have you converted over Andy?
  • D.PageD.Page Posts: 1,562
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    andy1231 wrote: »
    Davey, just read your post about converting VHS to DVD. What do you use ? I have a Video/DVD recorder and its realy simple. You just put a blank DVD in one side and the tape you want to copy in the other, press play/copy and hey presto the DVD records whatever is on the tape. No loss of quality or loss of frames etc. I have converted all my home movies from my camcorder this way and they are great.

    If you're referring to dropped frames, then I would be very surprised if you don't ever get any, when using domestic DVD recorder equipment. I use Panasonic DVD recorders, and when transferring from S-VHS to either of my DVD recorders, I get the occasional dropped frame, despite the source tapes having rarely been played back, and in excellent overall condition, along with the use of Panasonic S-VHS decks I've rarely used since new. You have to be eagle-eyed to spot the occurance of a dropped frame - typically, one may occur in, say, half-hour's worth of footage, but they certainly do occur, and they're very irritating, especially if they occur during camera pans etc!
  • Susie_WilcoxSusie_Wilcox Posts: 1,014
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    I remember taping the Sound of Music soon after we got our first VCR, a Sanyo, in 1982. Taped some dads army's over the years, One Foot in the Grave's too and I taped Diana's funeral coverage from start to finish on a long play tape in '97. It is still sitting in mum's cabinet in Oz.

    I recall from 1981 a monster of a VCR by the company Telefunken...it looked like something out of Dr Who.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 4,043
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    andy1231 wrote: »
    Davey, just read your post about converting VHS to DVD. What do you use ? I have a Video/DVD recorder and its realy simple. You just put a blank DVD in one side and the tape you want to copy in the other, press play/copy and hey presto the DVD records whatever is on the tape. No loss of quality or loss of frames etc. I have converted all my home movies from my camcorder this way and they are great.

    I use a PC to transfer the tapes over because you can fine tune alot of things including taking the hiss out of the audio.
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