[hoggys2much]

If I have got the wrong section sorry but can someone tell me why DVDs are popular?

I mean according to someone on another post if you XP a DVD on only get 1 hours playback? What??? That is pathetic! How the hell are you ment to record movies and stuff? Reminds me of the old Betamax days! I mean why have people traded in a medium where you can record up to 8 hours for spmething you can record only 1 hour! That makes no sense to me at al!

Also I dont have a DVD recorder because I have a VHS and stand alone player. But my DVD player plays back DVDRs and RWs (both + and -) and there is virtually NO difference between the DVDs and tapes I have recorded on my SIX HEAD NICAM HI-FI STERO SOUND video recorder! In fact sometimes I think my video beats the DVD of picture and sound quality!

Also if thats a problem with how much you can fit on them doesn't it cost more for blank DVDs than tapes? You can get a 5 pack of tapes for the same price as a 5 pack of DVDs! And with LP that is 40 hours of tape!? Compaed to 10 hours of DVDs!

Also with DVDs the minute a little speck of dirt or a tiny scratch gets on them they start jumping and crashing and doing your head in and you have to spend hours cleaning them! Where as tape is virtually INDESTRUCTABLE! If there is a wrinkle on the tape all that happens is you may get a couple of seconds of a fuzzy line going down the screen or somethng! But it does not freeze or jump and you can still see your programme!

Also what is the life span of DVDs! I have a 20 year old tape which has been played numerous times through numerous videos and could not tell the tape was 20 years old!

Fact! Did you know that sound mixers still use VHS because they reccon that the sound from HI-FI VHS recorders are far better than DVDS!

Also If the sound is ment to be better than VHS then why is everyone hooking DVDs to HI-FIs? No one ever did that with VHS!

So why are DVDs more popular?

[prking]

Are you confusing DVD-Video with DVD-R/DVD+R etc etc?
If you are you seem to be making a long rambling argument about something you haven't used, don't understand and have heard mentioned elsewhere.

[mossy2103]

And the post is stuffed full of inaccuracies and some basic lack of understanding, for example:

Quote:

Fact! Did you know that sound mixers still use VHS because they reccon that the sound from HI-FI VHS recorders are far better than DVDS!

I'm not convinced that the humble VHS system has ever been used commercially, it is a home system not a commercial one.

Misunderstandings:

Quote:

I mean according to someone on another post if you XP a DVD on only get 1 hours playback? What??? That is pathetic! How the hell are you ment to record movies and stuff?

Commercial DVDs tend to be dual-layer with professionally-applied video compression techniques.

Quote:

But my DVD player plays back DVDRs and RWs (both + and -) and there is virtually NO difference between the DVDs and tapes I have recorded on my SIX HEAD NICAM HI-FI STERO SOUND video recorder!

The video resolution is much much lower on VHS, so the picture quality will never surpass a well-mastered DVD that can give even greater quality by using anamorphic squeeze on the picture. And SIX HEADS tend to give a better and more stable fast-forward/reverse/picture still facility, but even then the quality cannot approach that of a dvd still or fast-forward/reverse.

Quote:

Also If the sound is ment to be better than VHS then why is everyone hooking DVDs to HI-FIs? No one ever did that with VHS

The only way that you will get to experience any decent quality, especially multi-channel, is via a decent HiFi system, regardless of format. Indeed, VHS cannot give anything other than stereo sound or matrixed surround, as opposed to the discrete surround channels that dvd can carry.

If the OP is referring to creating his/her own dvds via authoring programs, then he/she would be well-advised to read up on the principles of data compression, and the pros and cons of different source formats and what it means for the encoding process. Also, look at whether discrete 6-channel surround sound can be added without additional software applications.

http://www.videohelp.com/ is a good place to start, especially the Guides section.

[Kenny Maclean]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoggys2much

Fact! Did you know that sound mixers still use VHS because they reccon that the sound from HI-FI VHS recorders are far better than DVDS!

No, because that is utter nonsence.

[davidweller]

But there is/was D-VHS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-VHS

[mossy2103]

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidweller

But there is/was D-VHS:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-VHS

There is, BUT the OP started quite clearly

Quote:

because they reccon that the sound from HI-FI VHS recorders are far better than DVDS!

D-VHS is not the same (nowhere near the same in fact) as the domestic VHS system, and is still a domestic rather than a commercial system (one that has not really taken off, surpassed by DVD and HD formats).

[davidweller]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mossy2103

There is, BUT the OP started quite clearly

I know...but I thought he might be geting his VHS formats mixed up.

[mossy2103]

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidweller

I know...but I thought he might be geting his VHS formats mixed up.

With the greatest of respect to that poster, he is getting quite a few things mixed up, even allowing for the fact that D-VHS hardly made a dent in the market over here, and was certainly never anywhere near widely available and cheap.

[GTL]

hoggsy2much

The answer hasn't really changed since you last posted the question 6 months ago. Just go back and reread the replies from then.

[hoggys2much]

To everyone who wrote in goto en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vhs scroll down to just underneath the picture of the open VHS and you will see a paragraph about the sound quality of VHS!

And I quote! " The excellent sound quallity of HI-FI VHS has gained it some popularity as an audio format in certain applications; In particular, ordinary home HIFI VHSs are sometimes used by home recording enthusiasts as a handy and inexpensivemedium for making highquality stereo mixdowns and master recording from multitrack audio tape"

And try this! VHS is STILL the most popular form of home recording!

And to clarify I bought some cartoon series from guys on ebay who copy them probably from tape onto DVDRS! Now I play them through my stand alone player (which plays all formats) and they are on a par with sound and picture quality of my tapes! But when it comes to my other box sets i.e Wonder woman or any of my movies I have to turn the sound so high that if I change back to my T.V at that sound I would blow the speakers!

[Nigel Goodwin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoggys2much

And I quote! " The excellent sound quallity of HI-FI VHS has gained it some popularity as an audio format in certain applications; In particular, ordinary home HIFI VHSs are sometimes used by home recording enthusiasts as a handy and inexpensivemedium for making highquality stereo mixdowns and master recording from multitrack audio tape"

Perhaps you might check when that was dated?, I think you'll find it's probably back last century? - HI-FI VHS was good quality, but it's probably not been used much for audio recordings now for many years?.

A digital multi-track audio recorder was popular for a while (can't remember what it was called now?), it was based on helically scanned VCR techniques - but that's long dead now, replaced by HDD recorders.

Quote:

And try this! VHS is STILL the most popular form of home recording!

Might still be?, but it's falling rapidly, and won't be for long (assuming it still is?).

Quote:

And to clarify I bought some cartoon series from guys on ebay who copy them probably from tape onto DVDRS! Now I play them through my stand alone player (which plays all formats) and they are on a par with sound and picture quality of my tapes! But when it comes to my other box sets i.e Wonder woman or any of my movies I have to turn the sound so high that if I change back to my T.V at that sound I would blow the speakers!

I really can't believe you're complaining about that? - the reason is SIMPLE, it's NOT a fault, it's a feature.

The commercial films have Dolby 5.1 sound tracks, so the six tracks have to be mixed down to only two to play back in stereo. You can't squeeze 6 tracks in the space for two (not enough dynamic range) so the levels have to be reduced to maintain the dynamic range.

But all of your arguments are basically either totally wrong, or totally ludicrous! - or both!.

The point you don't appear to make (unless I've missed it?), if that VHS recorders are FAR simpler to work than DVD recorders - I'm sure 75% of DVD recorders never (or hardly ever) get used!.

[Kojack]

I can't believe someone would even question DVD against VHS

[Gilson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kojack

I can't believe someone would even question DVD against VHS

I would against S-VHS!

As I've said before 1 hr DVD home recording -great, but by the time you get to 2 hrs the PQ on DVD is falling behind, at 4 hrs its arguably no better than good standard VHS. You can get 4 hrs of near DVD quality on one S-VHS tape.

As for the depth multiplex Hi-Fi sound used on the better VHS machines it was compared favourably to CD. It must also be remembered that the later VHS pre-recorded tapes carried 2 soundtracks and only the better VCR's played the depth multiplex track, and could also record this track on home recordings. Even some cheaper Nicam VCR's did not playback or use the better recording method.

[ShaunIOW]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoggys2much

If I have got the wrong section sorry but can someone tell me why DVDs are popular?

I mean according to someone on another post if you XP a DVD on only get 1 hours playback? What??? That is pathetic! How the hell are you ment to record movies and stuff? Reminds me of the old Betamax days! I mean why have people traded in a medium where you can record up to 8 hours for spmething you can record only 1 hour! That makes no sense to me at al!

Blank DVD's can record up to 6 hours on a normal one and 12 hours on a dual-layer one with the quality slightly better than VHS LP. The 4 hour mode on a standard DVD is more than acceptable for off TV recordings and is still better than SP VHS - higher resolution, no hissing or crackling on sound, no lines on the recording.

Quote:

Also I dont have a DVD recorder because I have a VHS and stand alone player. But my DVD player plays back DVDRs and RWs (both + and -) and there is virtually NO difference between the DVDs and tapes I have recorded on my SIX HEAD NICAM HI-FI STERO SOUND video recorder! In fact sometimes I think my video beats the DVD of picture and sound quality!

Depends on the source of the DVD recordings - if they were recorded off VHS then obviously they won't be any better than VHS and will probably be worse due to signal degredation when recording, but whatever the DVD picture will only be as good as the source material.

Quote:

Also if thats a problem with how much you can fit on them doesn't it cost more for blank DVDs than tapes? You can get a 5 pack of tapes for the same price as a 5 pack of DVDs! And with LP that is 40 hours of tape!? Compaed to 10 hours of DVDs!

Depends where you buy - atm a 50 pack of DVD-R offering 200 hours of good off TV
recordings can be bought for £4.99 - I doub't you could buy the required 25 E240 tapes for that length of recording in LP mode, let alone 50 for SP mode..

Quote:

Also with DVDs the minute a little speck of dirt or a tiny scratch gets on them they start jumping and crashing and doing your head in and you have to spend hours cleaning them! Where as tape is virtually INDESTRUCTABLE! If there is a wrinkle on the tape all that happens is you may get a couple of seconds of a fuzzy line going down the screen or somethng! But it does not freeze or jump and you can still see your programme!

DVD's are a lot more robust than you think, and no way are tapes indestructable.

Quote:

Also what is the life span of DVDs! I have a 20 year old tape which has been played numerous times through numerous videos and could not tell the tape was 20 years old!

Hard to say about the life of a DVD as they haven't been out long enough yet to tell, but they don't degrade through playing like tape does.

Quote:

Fact! Did you know that sound mixers still use VHS because they reccon that the sound from HI-FI VHS recorders are far better than DVDS!

They might use DAT tape but no way would they use VHS (even betamax was better than VHS).

Quote:

Also If the sound is ment to be better than VHS then why is everyone hooking DVDs to HI-FIs? No one ever did that with VHS!

No one bothered with VHS as the sound was so poor that putting it through a hi-fi made any imperfections sound worse plus commercial DVD's tend to have 5.1 or DTS surround sound and not just stereo or pseudo surround found on VHS.

Quote:

So why are DVDs more popular?

Apart from the reason's I added above:

1. Commercial DVD's offer far better picture and sound than a commercial VHS

2. Easier to jump to sections of the film

3. DVD's tend to have extras

4. DVD's take less space to store

5. DVD's are more portable for viewing away from home (portable player, laptop etc)

6. A dual-layer DVD-R can hold a full 22 episodes of a TV series in very high quality using DivX compression

7. If recordings are made on RAM discs then things like ad breaks can be edited out after recording

8. Films and especially TV series tend to be cheaper on DVD than VHS - eg. One season of Babylon 5 on VHS was £60, I bought all 5 Seasons on DVD in a boxset (not copies but originals) for £65 from Amazon

[mickandtich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoggys2much

If I have got the wrong section sorry but can someone tell me why DVDs are popular?

I mean according to someone on another post if you XP a DVD on only get 1 hours playback? What??? That is pathetic! How the hell are you ment to record movies and stuff? Reminds me of the old Betamax days! I mean why have people traded in a medium where you can record up to 8 hours for spmething you can record only 1 hour! That makes no sense to me at al!

Also I dont have a DVD recorder because I have a VHS and stand alone player. But my DVD player plays back DVDRs and RWs (both + and -) and there is virtually NO difference between the DVDs and tapes I have recorded on my SIX HEAD NICAM HI-FI STERO SOUND video recorder! In fact sometimes I think my video beats the DVD of picture and sound quality!

Also if thats a problem with how much you can fit on them doesn't it cost more for blank DVDs than tapes? You can get a 5 pack of tapes for the same price as a 5 pack of DVDs! And with LP that is 40 hours of tape!? Compaed to 10 hours of DVDs!

Also with DVDs the minute a little speck of dirt or a tiny scratch gets on them they start jumping and crashing and doing your head in and you have to spend hours cleaning them! Where as tape is virtually INDESTRUCTABLE! If there is a wrinkle on the tape all that happens is you may get a couple of seconds of a fuzzy line going down the screen or somethng! But it does not freeze or jump and you can still see your programme!

Also what is the life span of DVDs! I have a 20 year old tape which has been played numerous times through numerous videos and could not tell the tape was 20 years old!

Fact! Did you know that sound mixers still use VHS because they reccon that the sound from HI-FI VHS recorders are far better than DVDS!

Also If the sound is ment to be better than VHS then why is everyone hooking DVDs to HI-FIs? No one ever did that with VHS!

So why are DVDs more popular?

If there is a vote on the post that contains the most inaccuracies in one post this must be it.


You have obviously been reading the rubbish posted on another thread from a joker who claimed SVHS was as good as DVD.

DVD sound beats VHS by a mile and a half.

People rarely connected VHS to amps becuase the sound was so poor.

DVD is almsot cinema quality sound which is why people connect to amps.

The recordable dvd's that you have been watching have been recorded at very low quality levels and if you go below 4 hour level quality does suffer but its always better than VHS.

Or perhaps the dvd's are sourced from VHS recordings.

[mickandtich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoggys2much

To everyone who wrote in goto en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vhs scroll down to just underneath the picture of the open VHS and you will see a paragraph about the sound quality of VHS!

And I quote! " The excellent sound quallity of HI-FI VHS has gained it some popularity as an audio format in certain applications; In particular, ordinary home HIFI VHSs are sometimes used by home recording enthusiasts as a handy and inexpensivemedium for making highquality stereo mixdowns and master recording from multitrack audio tape"

And try this! VHS is STILL the most popular form of home recording!

And to clarify I bought some cartoon series from guys on ebay who copy them probably from tape onto DVDRS! Now I play them through my stand alone player (which plays all formats) and they are on a par with sound and picture quality of my tapes! But when it comes to my other box sets i.e Wonder woman or any of my movies I have to turn the sound so high that if I change back to my T.V at that sound I would blow the speakers!

Commercial dvd's use Dolby Digital encoding.

DD sound is always at a lower level than from VHS.

Get a decent sound system and you might get somewhere.

[mickandtich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kojack

I can't believe someone would even question DVD against VHS

Check out the thread on High Definition where I am/was arguing with a joker who claimed SVHS was equal quality to SP dvdr.

There are plenty of them out there.

To be honest ,dvd is wasted on them.

Chances are they are watching 4:3 analogue stretched to fill a widescreen and are wondering why the quality is not like their mates RGB connected 16:9 set up properly

Edit-Gilson is the joker and he's on here too

[mickandtich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gilson

I would against S-VHS!

As I've said before 1 hr DVD home recording -great, but by the time you get to 2 hrs the PQ on DVD is falling behind, at 4 hrs its arguably no better than good standard VHS. You can get 4 hrs of near DVD quality on one S-VHS tape.

I would agree that 4 hours on a dvdr is on par with a good SVHS recording.

However ,to say that SP quality is falling behind speaks volumes about your recorder ---it must be faulty.

With DTT and DSAT at lower than optimal bitrates I would challenge anyone to see the difference (at normal viewing distance) between an SP dvd from DSAT or DTT and the off air original.

I have dozens of DVD recordings since 2002 and I also have a few SVHS from a year or two before that and the 2 are as comparable as chalk and cheese.

While I admit that SVHS can produce excellent pictures from a proper s-video source like a camcorder ,SVHS recordings made via scart or s-video lead from DTT and DSAT are laughable compared to DVDR

[mossy2103]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hoggys2much

To everyone who wrote in goto en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vhs scroll down to just underneath the picture of the open VHS and you will see a paragraph about the sound quality of VHS!

And I quote! " The excellent sound quallity of HI-FI VHS has gained it some popularity as an audio format in certain applications; In particular, ordinary home HIFI VHSs are sometimes used by home recording enthusiasts as a handy and inexpensivemedium for making highquality stereo mixdowns and master recording from multitrack audio tape"

And try this! VHS is STILL the most popular form of home recording!

But NOT for professional recording as you claimed, and even for home recording I doubt that it is "popular" given that other digital formats are available. indeed, was it ever that "popular" outside of the small circle of people that utilised that feature?

Quote:

And to clarify I bought some cartoon series from guys on ebay who copy them probably from tape onto DVDRS! Now I play them through my stand alone player (which plays all formats) and they are on a par with sound and picture quality of my tapes!

Yes, the quality when transferred to DVD can only be as good as, but not better than the source. So if your ebay purchase was copied from tape, then the DVD transfer can only be as good as that tape copy.

Quote:

But when it comes to my other box sets i.e Wonder woman or any of my movies I have to turn the sound so high that if I change back to my T.V at that sound I would blow the speakers!

All that proves is that the soundtrack on some of the VHS tapes (or VHS copies to DVD done in a less than legal manner by some ebay bod) is recorded at a very high level compared your other formats. That is not a format quality issue, that is a recording issue

You really do need to get your correct facts and background information.

[mickandtich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShaunIOW

7. If recordings are made on RAM discs then things like ad breaks can be edited out after recording

Just to correct that point slightly.

Editing is possible on -RW(VR) in the same way as RAM and -RW(VR) stands more of a chance of playing elsewhere.

And of course on +RW you can "hide" ad breaks to make the player skip them on playback

[mossy2103]

And to put things in context for the OP, I have a Topfield PVR which records a direct transport stream to its hard drive. I can copy this to a PC, run it through a couple of applications and burn it to a DVD, with a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo soundtrack. There is no loss of quality, it is a direct copy of the recorded transport stream (which itself is a direct copy of the broadcast, with no loss of quality). I'd like to see what level of quality that you could get with your VHS SIX HEAD NICAM STEREO recorder

[-GONZO-]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ShaunIOW

Apart from the reason's I added above:

1. Commercial DVD's offer far better picture and sound than a commercial VHS

2. Easier to jump to sections of the film

3. DVD's tend to have extras

4. DVD's take less space to store

5. DVD's are more portable for viewing away from home (portable player, laptop etc)

6. A dual-layer DVD-R can hold a full 22 episodes of a TV series in very high quality using DivX compression

7. If recordings are made on RAM discs then things like ad breaks can be edited out after recording

8. Films and especially TV series tend to be cheaper on DVD than VHS - eg. One season of Babylon 5 on VHS was £60, I bought all 5 Seasons on DVD in a boxset (not copies but originals) for £65 from Amazon

You also forgot to mention:
You can pause a DVD without have to worry about the tape stretching.
No more Scotch head cleaners that you have to watch the screen until it clears and to words show up, but if it don't then you have to rewind and start again.
And:
NO MORE REWINDING THE BLOODY TAPE before you put it back in the box. LOL rewinding those 300 min tapes took bloomin ages.

[Gilson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickandtich

I would agree that 4 hours on a dvdr is on par with a good SVHS recording.

However ,to say that SP quality is falling behind speaks volumes about your recorder ---it must be faulty.

With DTT and DSAT at lower than optimal bitrates I would challenge anyone to see the difference (at normal viewing distance) between an SP dvd from DSAT or DTT and the off air original.

I have dozens of DVD recordings since 2002 and I also have a few SVHS from a year or two before that and the 2 are as comparable as chalk and cheese.

While I admit that SVHS can produce excellent pictures from a proper s-video source like a camcorder ,SVHS recordings made via scart or s-video lead from DTT and DSAT are laughable compared to DVDR

Your S-VHS recorder must have been faulty not my DVDR's (2)!

The technical spec even says it.

XP DVD =460 lines
S-VHS =420 lines
SP DVD = 390 lines
VHS Typical 250 lines - best 270 lines

Whats a proper S-video source?? There aint no difference as long as the source is a good resolution to start and is fed by RGB or S-video.

[Gilson]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mickandtich

I would agree that 4 hours on a dvdr is on par with a good SVHS recording.

Dont misquote me I did not say that. I said 4 hrs on a DVDR aint much better than an ordinary VHS recording

[mickandtich]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gilson

Your S-VHS recorder must have been faulty not my DVDR's (2)!

The technical spec even says it.

XP DVD =460 lines
S-VHS =420 lines
SP DVD = 390 lines
VHS Typical 250 lines - best 270 lines

Whats a proper S-video source?? There aint no difference as long as the source is a good resolution to start and is fed by RGB or S-video.

Your last line shows that you dont actually understand SVHS at all.

While SVHS can record better pictures than VHS it does it in a way not supported by the standard PAL format.

Thats why in the heyday (if there ever was one) of SVHS all the reviews and tech specs made it clear that SVHS quality is drastically short changed when used for recording PAL tv.

You must be thinking that both my Panasonic and my previous JVC SVHS machines were all faulty.

I think the failure of SVHS ,even when prices dropped to VHS levels speaks for itself

I will link to an article explaining that S-video does not equal SVHS.

It can help you to understand what is a "proper s-video source"

Its key comment being:

"Sometimes SVHS is used to record a signal with significantly less luminance resolution than the SVHS format can record (such as TV off the air, or a Beta SP signal), in which case the extra bandwidth afforded by SVHS records nothing but extra noise."

http://www94.pair.com/jsoper/svhs.html