DVD ETC. MAGAZINE ASKS: DVD versus D-VHS? (1 Viewer)

[Wayne Bundrick]

Pardon me for knowing too well the inner workings of a VHS deck. I can't stay entirely away from tape, Jerome, nor do I feel that I should. But you can't call it paranoia unless you claim that the things I'm "paranoid" about don't really exist, i.e. that birdsnests and other tape failures don't happen and that the relatively ancient design of VHS in particular is not especially conducive to failure.

I'm not losing sleep over D-VHS, but I do think those of us who choose not to buy it need to do more than to just not buy it and to keep our mouths shut as some of you might want us to do. The industry needs to know why we choose to not buy it. For me, it's more than because it's tape, it's because it's VHS. The VHS cassette is not a collectible medium. Not when it was analog, and still not when it is digital.

 

[Bryant Trew]

I'd spend $2,500 on a first gen HD-DVD player before spending $500 on D-VHS.

 

[Jerome Saliga]

The VHS cassette is not a collectible medium. Not when it was analog, and still not when it is digital.

Wayne,

Thanks for enlightening me. Someone forgot to tell me that as I was building my uncollectable collection of 70 D-VHS recorded movies and 12 D-Theater tapes. Now I know better.

I think anyone who incessantly broods over the fact that something *might* go wrong or that a bird's nest *is possible*, or that a mechanical failure *could* happen is paranoid. But that's just my opinion and I could be very wrong. Having said that, you could get run over by a bus crossing the street. But not crossing the street strictly for that reason alone is irrational and fits the definition: adj. Exhibiting or characterized by extreme and irrational fear or distrust.

Like I said before, I don't think anyone really needs to justify their decision either way to anyone else here. Exercising one's freedom to choose for any reason is reason enough.

After building a library of 700+ DVDs I can't say I was all that excited about tape myself. Honestly. For me it was a risk versus reward evaluation. After seeing D-Theater on my own setup courtesey of a friend, I decided the relatively minor risk of tape was worth the considerable rewards of HDTV.

There's no doubt that I'll buy into HD DVD whenever it eventually comes along. I'm just glad I don't have to wait until then to start building a library of HDTV movies. I'm enjoying that immensely right now.

--Jerome

 

[Dan Hitchman]

Saying that everything is a-ok with D-VHS just because most HD masters are tape (as many studio executives mouthed) is a specious argument at best. Those tape masters are hardly ever played (and the method at which they're used doesn't call for much fast forwarding and rewinding to get to specific parts) the cassettes, tape and playback equipment are of hugely better quality than what JVC has given us.

D-VHS-- no thanks.

If HD-DVD is a rush job too without major leaps in sight and sound presentations, then I'll be skipping it as well.

Dan

 

[Brian-W]

If HD-DVD is a rush job too without major leaps in sight and sound presentations, then I'll be skipping it as well.

Sounds potentially like you won't ever be leaving the DVD format eh ?

 

[Paul McElligott]

Saying that everything is a-ok with D-VHS just because most HD masters are tape (as many studio executives mouthed) is a specious argument at best. Those tape masters are hardly ever played (and the method at which they're used doesn't call for much fast forwarding and rewinding to get to specific parts) the cassettes, tape and playback equipment are of hugely better quality than what JVC has given us.

Not only that, I doubt that the masters are, in fact, DVHS or any consumer-grade medium.

What I want to know is: Why bother using the VHS form factor at all? "Backward compatibility?" Please. How many people are going to use their DVHS deck to play regular VHS tapes on their nice shiny HD screen? Only the masochists, I think.

Other than JVC ringing a few more dollars out the VHS format, there was no practical reason for the first consumer digital HD tape format to use it. Better to re-engineer something from the ground up, something that places less stress on the tape and hardware.

 

[Al B. C]

No more tape based systems. Period!
I went to a over to a friends place who has a D-VHS, he sat me down on the couch to check out the PQ, hit play & viola, the tape needed to be rewound.
Hmmmmmm........No thanks. I don't need the inconvenience in my life. I haven't had a VCR or cassette deck hooked up in my house in at least 6 years.
Good riddance!

 

[Wayne Bundrick]

I think anyone who incessantly broods over the fact that something *might* go wrong or that a bird's nest *is possible*, or that a mechanical failure *could* happen is paranoid. But that's just my opinion and I could be very wrong. Having said that, you could get run over by a bus crossing the street. But not crossing the street strictly for that reason alone is irrational and fits the definition: adj. Exhibiting or characterized by extreme and irrational fear or distrust.

Is it irrational to not want to cross the street for fear of being hit by a bus after having been run over by buses on multiple occasions? It's not that mechanical failure and tape damage *could* happen, it's that it *HAS* happened in the past and more specifically it has happened *TO ME*. How many more times should I have to experience even just a brief wrinkle in the tape, before I'm allowed to have a justified, rational, non-paranoid distrust for VHS?

 

[Jerome Saliga]

It's not that mechanical failure and tape damage *could* happen, it's that it *HAS* happened in the past and more specifically it has happened *TO ME*.

Wayne,

You could have done the polite thing and simply said so in the first place instead of letting the discussion drag on. It's pointless to debate the issue with someone who has had a bad experience. All you had to do was convey that and I would have dropped it. Perhaps all you really wanted was to make a big splash. Congratulations.

I think Brian and myself are the last two D-VHS supporters left in this thread. Nope, make that just Brian.

--Jerome

 

[John Berggren]

I'm still here.
I support VHS, though I await the day when more, better titles are available, and my cable provider has ieee output. Or the day I figure how to make an HTPC on the cheap .
I think the back and forth on pro-DVHS and anti-VHS is silly. The point of this thread is to state your opinion on the matter, not to have it attacked. You don't like DVHS because all tape is bad? That's fine, don't buy it. State your opinion once and be done. You don't like people saying they don't like DVHS because all tape is bad? State your opposing opinion once, but don't waste steam on arguing the point.
Once again, DVHS is still superior to DVD, but DVD is still better than DVHS.

 

[Brian-W]

What I want to know is: Why bother using the VHS form factor at all?

Cheaper than 're-inventing' the wheel.

Take an existing format with existing production facilities and materials and 'upgrade' it. What do you think the reasoning is behind Warner's 'red laser' HD-DVD?

 

[ScottJH]

FWIW, The Digital Bits is reporting that Ice Age will be the first day and date title for DVHS along with its DVD counterpart.

 

[Troy LaMont]

Quote:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You anti-tape people are killing me.
Troy

 

[Mike McNertney]

Regardless of whether the tape the masters are stored on is of higher quality than consumer tape or not, the master tape is still used in a fundamentally different way than consumer tapes are. Therefore, any comparison between the consumer medium and the master is pointless, because by the very way in which the master is used, it avoids the pitfalls that most people are talking about with respect to tape

EDIT:
Let me put it this way... The argument that "masters are done on tape, so it must be ok for consumers" is analagous to this: "Computer backups are done on tape, so therefore tape must be a good medium for storage in consumer machines". That statement is complete bunk, because backups and typical storage have completely different operating requirements.

That is the only point I had about the HD masters.

Personally, this thread would have probably convinced me to give DVHS a shot if I had an HDTV and money to blow on a player... but I don't so the point is moot for me right now.

By the way... nobody has answered my question about why people seem to be presuming that EE and other artifacts present on DVDs will not be around on DVHS. Is there a technical reason you think this, or do you just think the studios will take more care in the transer?

 

[Des Easthom]

Just call me the normal home movie guy. Never got into Laser Disks. Consider it a marginal market. However when DVD Movies came along, I just into it within 3 months of its start. HD-VHS is a marginal market. Normal guy like me probably will stick to DVD's. Maybe HD-DVD player some day to go along with my 56" HD Toshiba. Just call me normal guy. Cheers

 

[Alistair_M]

I am still not sure how big the market will be for ANY high definition format. I think a lot of people are buying DVD players, receivers and extra speakers and are happy with DVD.

The problem is that high def needs a new set of equipment AGAIN (most of it at a premium price at least initially) - a high def compatible tv and a new dvd player.

I know several people who have recently bought dvd players and started to collect dvds - almost nobody is criticizing any aspect of the format - picture quality, sound quality and ease of use. I do think this is an important point. If DVD was a flawed format and people were saying 'yeah the picture is pretty good but not good enough' then there would be consumer demand for a new format. But most folks on the high street think dvd pictures are perfectly fine.

When High def dvd does come around - what percentage of the market will bother with the high def upgrade? I predict a small percentage (10%??).

If high def will be a niche format (taking this as meaning percentages of people with dvd/hidvd) then frankly D-VHS is as good as any other. If I was in the position to afford d-vhs when it reaches the £500 mark - I'd probably go for it -
as a niche design product its pretty flexible - watch hi def, record hi-def. Sounds good to me. Really hi-dvd will be a similar product in terms of what you do with it.

Its a bit like dvd-audio - it is better than cd - but what percentage of the market will upgrade to get it? This also requires a new player....sounds familiar. And again what percentage of the folks criticize the sound quality of cds... not many.

I think a lot of the regulars on this forum are the sort to embrace a high def format - but I honestly think most people on the high street are pleased with DVD (and the quality of dvd transfers are improving all the time) and not bother with its successors for years to come.

 

[Jesse Blacklow]

Alistair, you make a good point. I just said the same thing in a thread I read before this one. If the purpose of this discussion is to compare DVD and DVHS/D-Theater, you have to remember that it comes down to more than sound and picture. The whole LD vs DVD aspect doesn't apply in this case either, because LD was out for years before DVD was even announced, yet DVHS is barely out and we already have HD-DVD in the works.
One of the advantages of home theater is that the user can customize the experience, not merely recreate it. That being said, DVD does this more effectively than DVHS, even if it doesn't look or sound as good.

 

[Dave Anderson]

Muse laserdisc foreva!

 

[Sean Aaron]

I'm no more interested in D-VHS than I am in HD-DVD...DVD is just fine by me. The form-factor is good, they're easy to store (although I would rather have a jewel case for easier storage, but I can live with snappers and alpha cases), and they don't wear out from use (at least not that we know of).

I don't record things off the airwaves, so recordable is irrelevant to me; if I wanted to make home movies I'd probably use DV or an 8cm optical format (more likely the latter). I haven't owned a video player since I bought the DVD player in '98 and the only tapes I have are my wedding video and a couple of home movies that I'll gladly pay to have transferred to DVD once I get around to it.

 

[DaViD Boulet]

I'm all for supporting the first-gen of D-VHS. For a very good reason:
It will teach the studios how to properly master films to video
That's a lesson they can never learn with DVD because DVD appeals to a very broad market...you've got a handful of vidoephiles who want an OAR 16x9 anamorphic image with no compression artifacting or EE and DTS audio and you've got a whole bunch more walmart shoppers who want extras, hate black bars, and don't notice things like EE or compression artifacting on their 4x3 NTSC TVs (making room for even *more* extras on that disc).
Even THX can't figure it out with DVD. Just look at Heathers (too much DNR filtering) or Phantom Menace (EE/ringing). Heck, even on this forum where we are suposed to be the "experts" we still have threads where people argue that a DVD transfer is "great" because they can't see any problems from sitting 10 feet away from their 27" 4x3 TV while those with 100" projection screens who are annoyed by excessive EE or compression artifacting are called "snobs". DVD is a format that's spread too thin for everyone to win.
D-VHS will help the studios learn how to make transfers that really get a film "right". Because the consumer base is by and large limited to videophiles with large-screen HD displays, the format will have to appeal only to one market interest. Hopefully it won't be too many years before studios have learned to create high-resolution, hi-fidelity masters without applying any unecessary filtering, no added EE or "ringing", and if we're lucky maybe these guys will even learn how to encode properly at 1080P and leave vertical-filtering to the playback hardware for interlaced displays. We already get Dolby digital at an incredibly high bit-rate and we could even have DTS at full-bitrate without sacrificing video quality.
I've seen a few D-VHS titles and I can tell you that the silky-smoothness of the image on a large front-projector is really, really seductive. You don't realize how "processed" your average DVD looks until you see what these films look like in HD...no compression artifacting whatsoever (and no ringing or EE on most titles)...it's like a breath of fresh air!
Then HD-DVD can come along and reap the benefits of what the studios have learned with D-VHS.
-dave