anyone collect it? can offer up any advice on picture quality/players?

I really dig this format, the same way I prefer video game cartridges to discs. Something about a movie feeling heavy appeals to me

I bitched about how pan and scan dominates the format, but I still would like to try and find as many OARs as possible. Great, great format, simple and cheap, just not as cool as LD, but I still hold a special place in my heart for it for all the movies i've seen growing up with it.

Good day gbpxl,

My enthusiasm for VHS sort of dried up after I got into Laserdisc's in April of 1998, However I was going to keep the then top of the line Panasonic commercial s-vhs recorder, in order to record music onto good quality tapes, but alas this wasn't to be.

I know I should have kept this player as it was a real beauty.

D-vhs was also a great prelude to the now Blu-ray and the picture quality was amazing.

I enjoyed reading your post

Regards

When I got my first DVD player, I still intended to collect Laserdiscs, so I couldn't really see keeping space for a third format. So I sold off my entire VHS collection on Ebay back then (it was about 400 tapes or so.)

I once considered collecting VHS big boxes recently simply because of the cool cover art (from labels like Thriller Video, Wizard Video, Midnight Video), but in the end, I'd rather put that money towards more Laserdiscs!

Though you can check out some of the artwork I'm talking about on this page . . .

A VISUAL HISTORY OF VIDEO COMPANIES IN THE 80'S

I collect music VHS tapes that were never issued on laserdisc etc.

It has a number of good points:
In general much easier to obtain than any other format as it was so popular.
Much cheaper than any other format so if you are on a tight budget you can get some very rare titles inexpensively.
Truly massive back catalogue.
Loads of music videos and concerts not available on any other formats which are exclusive to VHS.
Actually not bad quality if you buy the better first editions which used higher grade tape or opt for Japanese releases etc.
Superior big box packaging in comparison to DVD/blu-ray.
Easy to digitise to DVD so you can have the best of both worlds and also continue to watch them without worrying about wear and tear.
Loads of high end VHS equipment available very cheaply.

I've been collecting VHS in parallel with laserdisc so have a substantial music video collection which is totally unique to the VHS format.
Whilst the quality isn't as good as other formats, the exclusive content more than makes up for it.

I also have some movies on VHS - again never re-issued on any other format.

i got transformers on vhs, mainly because they butchered it with the dvds

as long as your not collecting movies on vhs(pan and scan yikes) vhs is cool for tv shows cause they were all 4:3

I have to say, VHS looks like GARBAGE on my 32" LG LCD. It almost looked like it was posterized, if anyone is familiar with that photo editing technique.

They sell VHS for I think 50 or 75 cents each at the Goodwill, and they probably had about a hundred tapes. God I just wish it wasn't Pan and Scan- I'd buy the whole rack otherwise.

I have couple of thousand VHS and Beta originals, I'm currently trying to downgrade my tape collection by updating them to LD's title by title whenever it's possible but I'm far away from giving up with them completely tho as I intend to keep the titles never issued in LD format and certain coveted treasures which have more or less collector's value. Equipment-wise I've used Panasonic AG-W1 and Samsung SV-300W, both being converting multistandard decks, and I don't have anything negative to say about them although I could probably get even better results by getting standalone TBC box to chain with them as both of those models lack this particular feature. Personally I don't have any problems with watching tapes from my 50" but on the other hand I'm used to the way they look like, posterized impression in flat TV's sounds like there's too many artificial picture sharpening tools and such switched on which brings up all the artifacts straight on the top.

vhs was probably the worst video format in all honesty

I prefer them to DVD just because I don't like discs and cheap packaging

They lack the feeling.

What do I need to play a D-VHS, or VHD, or WVHS? Can I use my regular old VHS player?

VHD is a videodisc format and has no relation to VHS other than it was invented by VHS' inventor JVC. WVHS is an analog high def format incompatible with VHS as is DVHS. Both WVHS and DVHS units will play VHS tapes but a VHS unit cannot play W or DVHS tapes. WVHS tapes are not even made anymore... JVC tells WVHS users to use D9 (Digital S) tapes... D9 is a professional format for digital standard and high def recording.

thanks. looks like a D-VHS player is very hard to find

so am I the only VHS enthusiast here? I just think it's an awesome format. No disc changing required, compact design, and the tape makes it feel closer to film.

No you aren't, even when I'm leaning more towards LD's these days there's still at least thousand or so tapes that ain't going anywhere

VHS problem is that in all three forms of "regular" VHS, the color resolution is limited to less than 40 lines horizontally and color is vertically blended and smeared from line to line due to the way the color is comb filtered and encoded. VHS HQ made the vertical color smearing worse. Plus, measured "flat", regular VHS luma resolution is only about 120 lines or so... The looser 80 lines per MHz makes it around 240 lines. Super VHS problem is that it has the same low resolution color and its luma bandwidth is too wide for the formats inherent noise level - they gave it more resolution so you could see the noise better. JVC's last "high end" VHS units, the 9000 series with the DigiPure circuit and Dynamic Drum can make most any tape look quite amazing. Not to mention they have excellent 3D comb filters with full chroma bandwidth that work great decoding LaserDisc into S-video. It's just too bad Super VHS can't take advantage of that color information, although the Faroudja chroma bandwith expansion circuit makes it appear sharper. JVC even managed to make VHS Hi-Fi work right and not require outboard DBX Type II noise reduction to make it sound decent.

Still, VHS is VHS... You gotta love it for what it is and not instill it with qualities it does not have,
like faithfulness to the original source.

completely agree. i always hated VHS, even when i was a kid, i hated having to rewind the tapes after watching them, and when dvd came along i was happy that we didn't have to rewind anymore. after re-discovering laserdiscs a few years ago, i wish my parents had an LD player a long time ago so we wouldn't have to rewind the damn tapes lol.

I have a fondness of VHS just because when I started really getting into watching and collecting movies as a young teen it was the dominant format. I was always envious of people on the newsgroups who had laserdiscs. I had a good collection (maybe 150 or so) and even though I tried to buy widescreen when available most of my movies were P&S. There is something to be said for watching a low budget 80's horror movie on VHS on a 19" TV although it's mostly nostalgia.

That being said I always knew how crappy the format was. DVDs started becoming popular my junion/senior year in high school and getting my first player in college was incredible. The jump from VHS to DVD was mind-blowing to someone who never experienced LD in-between.

I purchased my first LD player at age 15 or 16.
I owned one Beta and two VHS VCRs in my lifetime (Beta being better!).
Both sucked as ALL the films that were not filmed 4:3 were cropped (pan & scan)!!!!
Format for

You've had some tough luck in there, when thinking worldwide heaps of movies were releases in their original aspect ratio while those P&S versions really became widespread during 90's when stupid consumers started to whine about letterbox bars resulting those "picture formatted to fit in your TV" abominations to fill the markets...

What comes to picture quality, here's some example screenshots from one of my rips I made back in the days, sourced from mid-80's beta rental with no additional filters or other enhancements involved:



Doesn't look that bad to me...?