Purchased some Fuji tapes once. Didn't like them. But they were Type 1. My old Haitachi did not really do well with Type 1 tape. In the 1980's you needed a good 3 head deck to do a Type 1 justice. They have really screwed the future of cassette decks up. Type 1 tapes will wear out in no time at all. A type 2 tape will last 500 plays before it so shows wear.
I slowly migrated to using mostly Fuji tapes by the time I stopped buying tapes, for both VHS and cassette. Although I'd buy Maxell, TDK or Sony if they were heavily discounted. I seldom used normal bias tapes though after the early '80s - chrome or, later, all metal. Fuji's videotape was a massive cost-saver for me - I recorded a lot of stuff. Would have cost me like 50% more with Maxell, my preferred tape up until that point. I think the Fuji was actually as good or better, too.
Fuji made great video tape. Along with Maxell they were my preferred camcorder tapes. They still play back perfectly more than 30 years later.
Yeah I was ripping stuff off the Fuji tapes and onto my DVD burner last year during the pandemic, then ripping them on the computer and re-compressing them in h.265 to store on my network drive. They all looked fine. I mean they're VHS so they're garbage, but they were always garbage. No dropouts or self-erasures in sight, though. It is amazing just how bad VHS was. I was broke back in the day so it was all I could really afford, but I'm surprised everyone else put up with it. Even at SP the picture quality was piss poor. Lower than that? Forget it. Still, the VCR was probably the most precision-engineered piece of mechanical equipment in any home, then and I'd imagine even now.
I can fully support what you say. You are so lucky to have a TC-KA6ES ( I assume this is what you have ), I do not think they were ever sold in the US. I have a TCK-3ES which is not that different than the TC-KA6ES. It still works and with metal tape makes very good needle drop recordings.
Yes, I mangled it's name there my one regret is I didn't buy another couple back when cassette was seen as a dead format and you could pick them up used for under £100 on a good day, I actually looked, but decided I didn't need any more, mine's due to be fired up very soon as I have about a dozen Maxell MXs I'd forgotten I'd even recorded that need transferring.
Nice. Did you work in the Pro video/TV Industry? These are professional tapes. You can't judge a tape manufacturer by it's pro line. Scotch cassette tape was so so but their 1970, Scotch RTR 306 formulation is famous. Or was until SSS made the 306 infamous. You wouldn't buy Sony cassettes but if it was 1989 and you needed 1/2 or 1/4 DASH tape then Sony was your brand of choice. Mmmm....Studer had a DASH D827, 24 track machine. They might have their own house brand of DASH tape. Anyone know? And this is Super VHS tape which is pure metal. Name me one band of crappy Super VHS tape and I will eat my own cooking. Why not a Fuji 3/4 video cart while we are at it. Nice machine! I am sure Fuji's prime line is good. It has to be because it is the pro line. Sony made crappy $50 portable CD players back 20 years ago. Break down in less than a year. But they also made $250 000 DASH multitracks that still work today. It is good however that you point out that Fuji made Pro tapes. But their type 1 tapes I didn't think much of. But then Type 1 tapes didn't agree with my cassette deck anyhow.
I agree, probably the weakest format ever. But with the right processing equipment and a lot of work you can make it quite watchable. Even on a 4K Oled screen.
Hey John, no just a video hobbyist This is the rest of the system I put together for restoration and archiving.
What the?..... Seriously?!?.... A hobbyist?! That is a REAL FREAKIN' SERIOUS hobby you got there. LOL LOL. Looks like a full Pro editing suite from 1992. I know people who back in 1991 who badly wanted good gear to edit VHS / Super VHS tapes on. They would have wiped entire galaxies out of existence for this stuff. The best they could get was Pro gear that was "aimed" at consumers. Back in the day those would be $30 000 worth of equipment easy. Question sir, do you edit Super VHS tapes? Back in the day my Uncle Jack would make 440 line Super VHS copies of 440 line Laser disks. So even without the laser disk player he could still watch the movie at the same video quality. He paid a lot of money for a Super VHS Pro editing machine with a flying erasure head and a time base corrector. Uncle Jack would always make two copies - one to play and one to store. Today he has 500 Super VHS tapes that were copied from 440 line Laser disks. Actually 1000. Half are back up copies he never played.
VCRs started out at 250 lines of resolution. Then 240.....220...and finally 200 by the mid 1990's. The early VCRs had no problem (on the SP mode) with recording a cable picture and playing back with no loss. I remember. Although this was back in 1979 when these machines were $1400 minimum.
Yes I can edit S-VHS on this system. I have hundreds of video recordings in just about every consumer format going back to 1979. Many of them are family tapes that I wanted to digitize and archive. Most of them are S-VHS and Hi-8. The idea was to start with the best professional VCR's in each format in order to get the best transfers. With this system I can work with everything from Betamax to 4K, as well as Laser Disc and DVD. Most of the legacy formats are archived to Sony XDCAM discs.
I have some late eighties JVC Pro VHS tapes, nice anti static cases, which were very expensive, however they still play absolutely perfectly with zero issues whilst consumer tapes from the same period have plenty of glitches even when properly stored, you definitely got what you paid for with video cassettes, I just wish I'd been able to afford the good stuff all the time.
No argument there. I purchased the best TDK pro VHS tapes I could get for PCM recording back in 1989. $15 each!
I'm curious as to whether, these days, tape machines are used primarily by those who have a collection of tapes (cassette or reel). I had a Sony cassette deck in the 1980's--I think it was a Sony TC-FX520R- it seemed pretty good to me. I purchased some prerecorded tapes but used it mostly to record new vinyl to tape for everyday and portable use--I would then store the vinyl. The Sony was damaged when I dropped it and it didn't seem worth repairing at the time, especially where I had most of what I listened to on CD by then. 6-8 years ago I purchased a used Denon DR-M34 HR in mint condition for $25.00--I had some music from musician friends that was only on cassette. The Denon seems to a very good deck. Vinyl was always my first choice for purchasing music (I didn't have a cassette deck in the 70's). However, I always lamented the vinyl medium's shortcomings--easily damaged, inevitable clicks and pops etc. I always thought of reel to reel as the pinnacle of audio reproduction--no scratched records etc. Economically out of reach though. These days most of my music is digital, either ripped to a NAS or via CD/SACD. Nevertheless, I don't think I would really care if digital never was, or suddenly ceased to exist. But if analog were the only choice, I'd be hunting for the best tape reproduction I could find. So, I have a nice cassette deck and a fair amount of decent tapes--some Maxell metal. I see reel to reel decks for sale and think "wouldn't that look nice sitting next to a vintage receiver and sound great too." I'm sure I'd be just as satisfied with the audio quality as I would from any other medium--save vinyl. All the above said though, I don't use my cassette deck or act on the impulse to purchase a reel to reel deck because I'm just don't see how it would be anything more than nostalgic (or better stated--redundant, given that I have most of what I listen to available on discs or streaming). Also, I can only see transferring from some other medium to tape. I don't know whether purchasing prerecorded reel tape is worth it. I appreciate quality engineering: analog cameras, mechanical audio products etc. I wonder of that's the attraction to tape users (and a sufficient reason to indulge) or is it out of a practical need or both. A little like climbing a mountain because it's there . . .
I still keep, but almost never use, a JVC HR-S4800U Hi-Fi S-VHS VCR and a Sony EV-S2000 Hi8 VCR in my main HT - just in case. I rarely use the Nakamichi RX-202 cassette deck that's in the system. However I've been looking for a way to put a fully-refurbished Akai GXC-325D back in service - mostly for its cool (by my standards) retro top-loading looks. I know where I can fit it into my main HT gear shelves. But before I do, I'm looking to first acquire an external Dolby B/C unit to use with it. It only has Dolby B and almost all of my hundreds of cassette tapes are Dolby C encoded. If I can find a reasonably-priced Nakamichi NR-200 or JVC NR-50 it will happen. No rush. Jeff
Thank you for your post. Some people record with cassette decks and others (like me) are transfering tapes to digital files. You can't really get good cassettes anymore. No matter how good a current type 1 tapes are they just can't take the abuse a Type 2 or 4 tape can take.
S-VHS was OK. Luma resolution was good but chroma hadn't been improved over the abysmally low resolution VHS offered. S-VHS pictures always looked like those early Ted Turner colorized films as a result - a fairly sharp B&W picture with washed out blobs of noisy-inaccurate color layered on top of it. It looked...odd. Especially when you compared it to the picture coming off of a Laserdisc.
S-VHS offered 440 lines. I have used S-VHS and it looks better on EP then regular VHS looked on VHS. Super VHS took over in the Pro video industry from 3/4 cart video so I have to disagree with you. The video circuitry wasn't always up to snuff. So if you purchased a crappy S-VHS model from 2002 then no doubt the picture suffered. And many others would disagree with you. Why would the colors be washed out? The SUPER VHS connections were way better than the crappy 250 line composite connections. The proof is that the pro industry dropped 3/4 inch video cartridges for the superior Super VHS Hi-Fi S-video hook up. I think that speaks for itself. Maybe I am wrong. Maybe you had a bad machine.
I don't know what you are trying to imply but none of us here buy super expensive equipment just to see how some uber expensive stuff sounds. We are audiophiles not morons. Well.....most of us our see audiophiles. If anyone thinks an MP3 256 file sounds the same a DSD native file then the person badly needs a MRI.
Nah, I did lots of colour Super VHS RECORDINGS. There was no washed out "Ted Turner" color. How dare you insult poor billionaire Ted Turner! Maybe the VCR you used was defective. I taped plenty of 480 line DVDs on the Super VHS (via S-video) hook up and those tapes looked just like the original DVDS. Almost.....Sort of.....kind of....
