Audio Recording on VHS HI-FI tapes (or Beta Hi-fi)*

I was never the type to record music that much but I did try it back in the day, only because I had a HiFi VHS machine..
From what I remember, (which ain’t much) the recordings turned out okay. I think my wife still has a Sony
VHS HiFi back at the house.. The one I bought back in the 80's was a Panasonic.. Man.... I'm getting old..

 

I helped a friend record a VHS tape for his wedding. We thought it was the next best thing to a reel to reel since we could get 6 hours of music on one tape. I don't even remember worrying about sound quality. We were more concerned about keeping the keg cold.

Good wedding day.

 

I recorded some Beatles Jpn red vinyls before I had to sell them on my JVC HR-S9000U about 12 years ago & the results were quite good. I used to static menu image from my DVD player to feed a video signal as well & had no issues at all. I still have the machine & the tape too. I've replaced those recordings with better 'drops from elsewhere, but it was a fun project.
I tried it a few years prior on my Sony SLV 595HF with equally impressive results. I can't imagine any need to record this way today, but I still have both decks & some sealed blanks in case I change my mind.

A comparison footnote: While the JVC machine outperforms the Sony imagewise as an S-VHS deck should, the Sony is the better made machine. They really did make those decks like a tank. The JVC, while being miles above the el cheapos of the day is much lighter on the build quality & has already needed a bit of TLC to keep it going. The Sony, having survived the sole source of movies, rentals ect. years has needed a transport lube & nothing else.

 

I had the same one. The day I bought it, I bought the Fleetwood Mac Mirage Tour '82 Beta Hi-Fi tape. It completely blew me away.

 

I used a top JVC Hifi vcr back in the 80s ..hr7600?? with great success. They sounded great but I could never do individual songs..just full albums. The heads would disengage after a few minutes and you couldn't get that nice tight edit once it happened. I gave up trying to make mix tapes and stuck to albums.

 

Wow, there were MFSL HiFi VHS releases. I was unaware of any labels releasing albums on this format, let alone MFSL. I bet they sounded superb.

 

I did some VHS audio recordings in late 90's and then forget about VHS audio recording...until now (2015) when it came on my mind at some point. I bought HI-FI VHS deck and backup some CD's, but mostly vinyl. I like the results.

 

I had a top of the line Canon HI FI VHS video/audio recorder. Adjustable record level faders and adjustable tracking fader. Once this fader was locked in it did not budge hence no tape/mistrack dropouts, which made a horrible sound when it happened, not just your usual muffled sound loss. My tapes still sound real nice (I did have the heads replaced) and I put my MoFi Beatles on nice top quality TDK tapes. Tape hiss virtually eliminated because of the Head speed/Tape speed relationship, and according to Canon's stats, approached
120 IPS (well I don't k now about that) but to my ears was superior to reel to reel and certainly cassettes at the time.

 

The MFSL VHS were NOT HiFi, they were PCM tapes using the EIAJ PCM format. Used a PCM processor like the old Sony PCM-F1 for playback.

 

When HiFi video was relatively new, the head of audio at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's Melbourne TV studio (ABC-TV) told me that he had started to use HiFi video as an audio archiving media. I don't know the context or how long it was done for.

 

All my VHS-Hi-Fi tapes recorded around 1987-89 sound fine today. No dropouts, and no mistracking. I am not even playing these tapes on the deck that recorded them, it is a different deck, different model, but same brand.

My last working VHS deck has developed a problem. If it sits for months or years and is not used, it will reject many attempts to load and thread a tape. It accepts the tape, and ejects it before threading as if the tape is sticking, but it is not the tape. After 40 or 50 tries, it threads the tape. and will continue to work ok for that session of playing tapes.

Get this, I figured a way to get this deck to load correctly almost from the first try even if the deck has sat for a while. The trick is to (always) leave a tape loaded in the machine when it is shut down for the session. Then when it is powered up months/years later, it has the tape in loaded position already, and when I eject that tape and load another, it seems agreeable. Smart fix there huih?

This temperamental deck is my last good one, its a Mitsubishi with wonderful sound and amazing auto-locking tracking. When this deck dies, my next one might not be so agreeable with various tapes.

 

Of all the analog playback media/devices, it was the Hi Fi VCR that came closest, and still is closest, to CD quality.

"Around 1984, JVC added Hi-Fi audio to VHS (model HR-D725U, in response to Betamax's introduction of Beta Hi-Fi.) Both VHS Hi-Fi and Betamax Hi-Fi delivered flat full-range frequency response (20 Hz to 20 kHz), excellent 70 dB signal-to-noise ratio (in consumer space, second only to the compact disc), dynamic range of 90 dB, and professional audio-grade channel separation (more than 70 dB).

The sound quality of Hi-Fi VHS stereo is comparable to the quality of CD audio, particularly when recordings were made on high-end or professional VHS machines that have a manual audio recording level control. This high quality compared to other consumer audio recording formats such as compact cassette attracted the attention of amateur and hobbyist recording artists. Home recording enthusiasts occasionally recorded high quality stereo mixdowns and master recordings from multitrack audio tape onto consumer-level Hi-Fi VCRs. However, because the VHS Hi-Fi recording process is intertwined with the VCR's video-recording function, advanced editing functions such as audio-only or video-only dubbing are impossible. A short-lived alternative to the hifi feature for recording mixdowns of hobbyist audio-only projects was a PCM adaptor so that high-bandwidth digital video could use a grid of black-and-white dots on an analog video carrier to give pro-grade digital sounds though DAT tapes made this obsolete.

The considerable complexity and additional hardware limited VHS Hi-Fi to high-end decks for many years. While linear stereo all but disappeared from home VHS decks, it was not until the 1990s that Hi-Fi became a more common feature on VHS decks. Even then, most customers were unaware of its significance and merely enjoyed the better audio performance of the newer decks."

VHS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia »

 

As far as I know, the audio was frequency modulated onto a sub carrier added to the video signal, or something to that effect, so it probably isn't directly comparable to traditional audio tape. But the quality was excellent for its time, provided there were no tracking issues.

 

This was pretty common at a lot of radio stations before hard disk became more viable.

 

Looked (and listened) into this back in the late 90s - the format is nobbled by the requirement of a compander in the chain and sync issues:

Audio Engineer's Reference Book »

 

No, the best ever is 7 1/2 IPS or 15 IPS half track Stereo or Full track mono open reel. The only real analog ARCHIVAL medium. VHS HiFi consumer grade silly undependable TOY! No more reliable than any other digital non Archival format made. Get tools you can depend on when VHS machines are in LANDFILLS. No NR necessary. No companders which you can sometimes hear audibly. Built to be serviced, to be aligned as need be, to be maintained through every other format but vinyl disc's end. Built for recording audio and doing so in a way you can play back over 50 years later. Wikipedia is not the Library Of Congress, or several other important archival organizations, who do what I recommend. Standard reliable formats are there for a reason. VHS is best for Movies and for TV. Not for reliable, archival audio.

 

True, VHS is hardly reliable enough for archival. But when all the tapes have rotted and the hard disks failed, we'll be left with CDs and vinyl. Will well pressed CDs still work in 100 years? we don't know. 200 years? getting doubtful. Will a vinyl disc still be playable in 200 years? Probably.

 

Open reel and vinyl we can get to playback to some degree. Which is the point you get and understand well.

 

I've recorded audio onto VHS tapes using a professional Sony deck. I don't know if it's simply the character of the deck, but I've always found the resulting audio to be light in the low end. As if there was some kind of high-pass filter engaged. The deck is a Sony SVO-1630.

 

VHS is a type or reel to reel, and it has proven very reliable for some. It just depends on tape stock, recorder, and how the tapes were stored.

You come off bitter, as if you are angry at those that VHS hi-fi worked for.

 

It's too early to tell yet how long good VHS recordings are going to last. My TDK and Maxell top grade top of the lines are still tracking like the "pro" grade tapes that they called themselves on the fancy foil wrapper logos.

Going on 30 years later and the tapes sound amazing, who's to say they won't last another 30?

Amazing silly toys that outlasted their era.

I need to post a video of these tapes and their thrilling playback. Quite impressive!

 

I suppose I should have qualified that statement with "consumer grade equipment". I'm not aware of any consumer grade rtr that matches a Hi Fi VCR (on similar quality tape) in any way that can be measured.

As for archiving, tape is not a very good choice as it degrades over time. Sure the degradation can be slowed right down with professional storage but degrade it will.

IMO the best format for archiving purposes is the vinyl record as it is not dependent on software or electrical processes for playback. For example if there was some catastrophic event putting humanity back into the stone age, someone could still work out if you spin a record, put a fine stick into the groove and put an ear next to it they can hear what is on it. Even today, if NASA was to send a long distance probe into space it would make more sense to attach a record (like Voyager) for that reason.

 

I have never noticed that with my Hi Fi VCR - I used to record CDs to them and I could barely detect any difference from the source, and that was with a young man's ears.

Its worth pointing out though that rtr recordings could be light on bass running at 30ips compared to 15ips. That was part of the trade-off for lower noise and higher fidelity in the upper registers.

 

Akai 4000DS at 7.5 IPS beats Panasonic NV-HD650

 

Years ago when the format was still popular I tried recording drums (on a very good machine, not a cheap one) and the very audible "pumping" artifacts from the compander rendered it useless for me as a recording medium. "Noise bars" were another issue.