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I'm curious about how many folks might still have some commercial vhs movies within their library? Apologies in advance to those who prioritize the home theater as No. 1 in their media playback system. I'm a 2-channel guy that likes to play Lps.I've yet to go-over to Blue-Ray as yet. 'waiting for prices on players to come down....and for blue-ray recorders to appear. This is still beyond the horizon as yet, I suspect. So my personal collection of commercial movies contain both DVD and VHS commercial titles. Also, I have amassed a serious quantity of DVD-R's recorded off satellite ppv from my dvr. These recordings show signs of mpeg compression but are still quite watchable, mostly.
Enough about me and back to the post topic. VHS as a viable medium for watching commercial movies. I've found many of the VHS movies in my collection to be very watchable and, while not usually in the same picture quality league as many DVDs, are nonetheless very good. In that regard, I'm not of a mind to cast out my collection of movies on tape. Besides, I've got some cash wrapped up on those.
So, if VHS movies are not to be automatically thrown into the trash, there comes the inevitable problem of vhs player/recorder hardware maintenance. At some point, manufacturers stopped making good quality vhs machines; only making models of semi-disposable quality and obviously these are not worth repairing. Now it seems, these are the only ones that can be found new, if found at all.
I'm currently using a Mitsubishi U70 S-vhs recorder/player. circa ~1990. I acquired this as a family hand-me-down. I think it's pretty good. So far I've replaced one re-wind belt on it. Otherwise, the player remains untouched and still fully functional. Personally, I don't mind diving in and doing maintenance on these. However I don't have much experience with the hardware. I was wondering if anyone, who still plays around with vhs, has a preference to some of the better built vhs machines? I recall that there was a Sony model that received very good reviews back in the day. Anyone remember that one? Any recommendations of other vhs machines that are worth fixing diy style?
-Steve
Edits: 01/01/09Follow Ups:
I never liked the limitations of VHS, and I couldn't wait for DVDs to be launched. I love Blu, BTW.
My main complaint about consumer VHS, besides the poor quality (on anything other than a small screen) is its [un]reliabililty. I dunno what I'm gonna do when my JVC S-VHS gives out. Pray I can get it repaired I guess. Knock on wood - so far it's been trouble free, but it doesn't get as much use as the DVD player. I keep it hooked up to the 27" CRT, as that's the ideal display in my house to watch tapes.
Like Jack, I have some movies and other material on tape that are not available on DVD. So I nurse my machine and keep my fingers crossed. I'll probably transfer a few of my dance/opera and movie tapes to DVD, just to preserve them. PQ will still be poor, but at least I won't lose them.
I've seen some tape failures too. iirc, part of the problem with tape stems from the lubrication used between the years 1973 - 1986 or thereabouts. The lube, which prevents the magnetic coating from sticking against the overlapping layers, would break down after several years and then the tape pack would stick, rot and shed. (Way to go Ampex;-) Still, tape produced after that period should be longer lived. According to the R2R folks, magnetic tape produced before that period had no such problem and is still found, often enough, to be in excellent condition to this day.
I've had some mechanical failures within the vhs cassette housing. Sometimes repairs within are possible. Parts are plentiful. Just cannibalize another cassette.
I'm using a 32" lcd (Samsung) so I might be able to tolerate the lower rez of vhs better than those of you with larger screens. Even so, I do crave for higher picture quality and will likely get a Blu-Ray player sooner rather than later. I just hate to abandon some of those great movies that I have on vhs.
While I don't have use for all of the editing capabilities of a pro recorder, it would be nice to maintain a higher quality consumer deck just for playback. Btw, I had a JVC vhs that I had purchased sometime around 2000. I think it was $250 or so on a discount. The Mitsubishi I'm referring to in the original post definitely provides a better picture quality than the JVC did...and it was at least 10 yrs older. On the other hand it really doesn't show impressive recording quality except with S-vhs media.
-Steve
By a large margin in PQ, and it wasn't that expensive. Good recorder or player, considering the limitations on resolution.
I keep the 27" CRT, even though it's beyond heavy, just for those things taped off air (Balanchine ballets, concerts) and those movies I fear may not make it to DVD.
I use TIVO now for archiving. There really isn't all that much on TV I want nowdays other than certain movies on TCM.
The bigger the screen, the worse VHS looks.
It gets tricky because even when parts remain available, rubber parts in particular do age. Panasonic (and I think JVC as well) made pro-grade 19" rack mountable VHS machines which you might be able to pick up today for under a grand, with Panasonic's AG-7500 being pretty typical. I even saw one at a thrift store once! They were designed for much heavier use than your average home machine, and designed to be repaired rather than replaced. Downsides are that they can be huge, fairly noisy, no consumer features like timer or tuner, no wireless remote. But on the other hand, it'll do the best frame-by-frame you've ever seen.
But it may be easier to seek out late-model JVC SVHS consumer machines which sometimes include a timebase corrector. Very lightweight and not much inside, but sometimes newer can be better.
I still have some VHS tapes. Most I replced, but people forget that there are still alot of movies that never made it to DVD.
The link below is a list of the top 200 titles requested at TCM, that aren't on DVD yet.
Jack
I dumped VHS about a decade ago.
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