VHS titles that are superior to Blu ray?

"It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia."
Frank Zappa

 

No, we discussed that before. The untampered with mono soundtrack has never been issued on home video.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/vhs-a-hard-days-night-question.346680/

Derek

 

A very useful unit for watching/transferring VHS tapes is the Panasonic DMR-EZ series. I found the picture quality to be surprisingly acceptable through the HDMI output, even on a 42" screen, the heads are decent, and it has a time base corrector to stop the picture jumping around everywhere.

 

Apparently Disney Animated Films are. What silliness:

http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/to...-and-Partially-Animated-Features/topic/15617/

 

Just as well I kept a trunk full of VHS's under my bed.

 

The guy who wrote this piece is a ***** who makes a lot of vague hasty generalizations that aren't necessarily true. He did provide a link to an interview with Grover Crisp of Sony Pictures, and I agree with this statement:

It is almost impossible to get an older film to look the way it does when it was originally released. The color will never look as it did, nor will sound sound the way it did. Film stocks have changed, printing processes have changed, technology in general has changed. Every version is an approximation, though some approximations may be better than others. Take consolation in the fact that even when the movie was in circulation, it may have already existed in multiple versions.

That is absolutely the truth. The reality is that nobody really knows what an old film looked like, because it's a very subjective experience and the labs were uneven and inconsistent.

I've occasionally gotten a few emails from people who said, "such-and-such a movie from 1969 didn't look this way at all! I remember vividly how it looked in the theater!" And I just roll my eyes, because the truth is, it's hard to remember specifics about how an image looked a week ago, let alone 10 years or 40 years. There are general truths as to where white is supposed to be and where black is supposed to be, and you can use old prints as a guide to a point, but even those can lead you astray, particularly if they're faded.

 

We've talked about this before too. Doctor M is wrong about many things. See my post here:

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...r-2015-from-disney.324294/page-7#post-9243527

Derek

 

I remember back in 1964-1967 TV shows that were in color looked fabulous! the colors popped...I don't know if it was the Color TVs of that era or the TV Shows themselves or a combo of both.

 

I tossed most of mine which wasn't much...although I still have a few alpha cases full of Beatles, Music videos, etc...why? I don't know!

 

Rowan&Martin 'fabulous color.

 

I'm down to one tote box of prerecorded/home recorded VHS tapes of movies that are not on DVD/blu or some even did not make it to VHS. I have an old top of the line Sony VCR hi/fi stereo with flying erase head that still works well, but even the best tapes look poor on my big flat screen.

 

yes...I just saw Goldie dancing in my head in living Color!

 

Sammy Davies Jr got her the gig.

 

I still have a few VHS tapes that I held onto just because the movies still aren't available on DVD.... Godzilla 1985, From Star Wars to Jedi, Delicate Sound of Thunder, etc.

 

Fast forward always a pita.

 

I vote TV. I happened across a yard sale one night. They had a mid to late 60s TV on the curb playing. The color made me stop and check it out. I was very impressed in how it looked.

Our RV has a tube TV and VCR so I pick up VHS tapes at Goodwill for a quarter to play in it. Last week we watched Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail and it was almost impossible to read the credits at the beginning of the movie.

Chad

 

Rewinding was always a bigger one. I remember as a kid my Mom would make me sit and rewind our tapes.

 

I have plenty of D-VHS tapes that really can beat video discs.....

 

Don't forget that most shows of the '60s were actually shot on film, so they're naturally going to look better with "richer" colors than video tape. When many shows of the '70s went to video tape, TV just didn't look the same. My folks had a 1968 Magnavox color tv until around 1980 and I can remember that a lot of the new shows of the '70s just didn't have the same color saturation as the shows from the '60s. Also, IIRC, many color TV manufacturers of the '70s and beyond switched to off-spec color phosphors in their picture tubes which yielded brighter, but less accurate color. It wasn't until the HDTV standard was adopted that a color gamut beyond what was possible in NTSC. Don't believe me? Check out Pushing Daisies, the color of that show is wild, almost cartoonish in it's saturation, but it's part of the charm of that show. I'm sure Vidiot will correct any of my gaffs here, I'm just going from memory.

 

Those things are junk and shouldn't be employed if you care about your tapes. It's actually better NOT TO REWIND tapes until you're ready to play them again. When you rewind with one of those units or a tape deck, the tape will not rewind with the edges evenly wound. The tape will be wound unevenly with edges sticking out here and there. The exposed edges of the tape will be prone to air movement and whatever is in the air. Playing tapes winds them evenly unless you're using a truly sorry VCR.

 

Depends on the rewinder, some of them were perfectly aligned and did a fine enough job, others were crude about it and even took too long to eject after reaching the end of the tape - potentially harming the tape. Not all of them are bad. Even "some" of the the really cheap ones were ok.

I had one that spooled the tape neatly on the reel, and it saved wear and tear on my higher end deck. However it did develop a habit of not ejecting right away when it reached the end, so I had to baby sit it at the very end of the task and eject it myself right then at that point.

 

I tried a couple of 'em to save mileage on my decks. They were terrible. I just quit rewinding after plays. You can't go wrong that way.

 

maybeso..I guess back then they really put a lot into the color TV.