It used to sell for no more than $50 and typically in the $30s but I don’t watch the market anymore. You need a HM-DH40000U or newer deck for DTS. Those can be $200 to $800 nowadays.

So the tape is likely cheaper than the DTS LD but needs a VCR. These D-VHS decks happen to be some of the best VCRs even for VHS and SVHS tapes.

I think True Lies is the only movie on D-Theater that still hasn't been released on blu-ray and with no so much as a rumor of release in sight, that one tape remains particularly desireable.

Also you must be talking about the performance because I've heard the D-VHS decks (or at least the D-Theater ones anyway, D-VHS has been around a lot longer) tend to be very unreliable. I've heard of people using regular decks to rewind their D-Theater tapes instead of doing it in the actual D-VHS one and that really doesn't convince me of the opposite.

I rarely look for reliability reputation for my electronics purchases. For me, the best or nothing. This suits me because I don’t put too many hours on my equipment but I want the best playback possible when I use them. So I couldn’t tell you if one is more reliable than the other. I have owned 40000U in the past and still own 5U and 100. Their performances are as good as it gets from the tape formats. 5U and 100 use a different transport mechanism than the others but they are more expensive.

Maybe my view is too Japan centric but it really looks like the D-VHS era for the most part took a substantial step back from the build quality of some of the high end "bubble era" S-VHS and W-VHS decks. It seems logical that for a digital signal a super degree of precision in the mechanism and playback back actually becomes less important (error correction etc.) while attempting HD analogue recording/playback in particular (W-VHS) demands it. Have a HR-W1 and when you look into the engineering effort in that deck it's really quite full-on. I get the impression D-VHS is back to very run of the mill construction for the most part.

I assume these would be among the best decks for VHS/S-VHS playback too, maybe some of the very best?


So there were differences - you get what you pay for!

Wild guess time; the PILF and PCLH releases are the same disc, just with different catalog numbers. The OBI might be the only major difference.

True Lies blu-ray transfer has already been done but apparently Cameron hasn't had time to review it etc for release.

https://www.empireonline.com/movies/new ... s-cameron/

It says "by the end of 2018". I'm not putting my hopes up.

Been here before. I'll believe it with True Lies when the BD is in my hands.

I only mentioned it because takeshi666 stated there wasn't even a rumour of a release. Unless Cameron is a chronic liar I think it's believable that a transfer has been done but there's little money to be made in such a release so he hasn't found the time to review (and maybe recommend tweaks).