DVD vs. VHS

[whabang]

I meant a DVD-disk (or is that disc?).

BTW, the RSAF would be rather useless, if there only was one "Grip".

[blobrana]

Oh!
(yes two hours is a bit small)



>>BTW ,
 you mean they have two? !!!

[whabang]

Indeed they have! The others have all crashed (Most swedes will get that joke). :lol:

[Morley]

KennyR wrote:
Quick check, I would like opinions on:

a) What is better quality, DVD or VHS;

b) Whether the difference quality is visible straight away or not.

I know where I stand on this, I just want to guage other people's opinions on the matter.

VHS on a high-end 6-head player may be better than a badly encoded DVD played on a 50€ DVD player. But in normal situations, never.

What I dislike about DVD's is that you cannot eject the disk and easily continue watching later at the point where you stopped, at least I get confused everytime the doorbell rings and I press the "STOP" button. But then maybe my DVD player is a moron, or me. That never happens on VHS :inquisitive:

[that_punk_guy]

:-?

Every player I've seen has a resume feature of some sort.

[Morley]

Not mine. Or I haven't found it yet :roll:

[that_punk_guy]

Heh... That's what manuals are for. ;-)

[Turambar]

Even my Panasonic Q Gamecube has a limited resume feature (limited in that if you switch the power off you can forget resuming) I believe its becoming pretty standard for players to save your position when you switch it off and give you option to view from that position the next time you play that dvd.

[KennyR]

DVD players resume when you press stop, but I own several and none have ever resumed when you take out the disc and put it back later.

(Its annoying pressing stop twice by mistake, then the DVD goes back to the start. Gaah!)

[Morley]

Turambar wrote:
Even my Panasonic Q Gamecube has a limited resume feature (limited in that if you switch the power off you can forget resuming) I believe its becoming pretty standard for players to save your position when you switch it off and give you option to view from that position the next time you play that dvd.

Well, I got curious and fiddled around with my DVD player today, and unlucky me, no resume. Press stop and you're screwed. A friend of mine however, has a DVD player with resume. Aargh. I'll buy a new one soon, it's really a bad player.

Anyhow, did you guys know that quite a lot of todays DVD players contain only an IDE'ish DVD reader and a Linux box with the OS on ROM? Pretty lame, no wonder they give bad picture and sound...

[iamaboringperson]

>a) What is better quality, DVD or VHS;
LaserDisc

No, sorry, I think DVD is overall. But MPEG compression can really mess up the quality of animation.
It depends on the recording more than anything.

>b) Whether the difference quality is visible straight away or not.

I can certainly tell the difference immediately.

[iamaboringperson]

Actually after watching Lord of the Rings the other day, I must say that VHS generally has a much higher picture quality.

I hate all of the little blocks that can be seen in the less detailed areas of the movie. MPEG sucks. Yuck!

[whabang]

>a) What is better quality, DVD or VHS;
LaserDisc

http://www.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/Ld/FAQ/Introduction.html#RivalsDVD

[KennyR]

iamaboringperson wrote:
Actually after watching Lord of the Rings the other day, I must say that VHS generally has a much higher picture quality.

I hate all of the little blocks that can be seen in the less detailed areas of the movie. MPEG sucks. Yuck!

The sharpness of your TV may be up too high. Try one of those THX optimizers you get on some DVDs. Most people seem to think sharper is better: that's not true. TVs have a certain resolution, and sharpening them is like sharpening fuzzy jpeg pictures - it doesn't add more information, it just makes them look terrible.

(Although, when the sharpness of my TV is up high enough to see MPEG artifacts, VHS looks really bad.)

[macto]

In my case, the option is clear: VHS.

Once image and sound quality have reached a certain point, any improvement is a moot point for me.

I usually watch things once, so recording is much more important.

The last time I checked, VHS was both cheaper and could record for longer.

Besides, I hate the access controls on DVDs.  Once I buy something I should be free to do what I wish with it, short of breaking the law.

[KennyR]

@macto

Double layer DVD-RAM for DVD recorders can record 4 hours. E-180 VHS tapes can record 3 hours 5 minutes. Sure you can get twice that on longplay, but the quality is generally terrible. And, while I don't own a DVD recorder, the quality is said to beat VHS by a long way too. I'd have to ask someone who owns one.

(Anyone?)