DVD killed the video star Update.

This is a response from one of my more knowledgeable buddy. I would disagree if he wasn't an electronics expert. I get a feeling the marketing men are selling us one and the the same thing twice over.

>> Besides, the VHS sound and picture quality were always rubbish.

And I beg to differ. I have heard this remark over and over and I think it really needs to be qualified. If you get a cheap VHS
recorder, then indeed your sound and picture will be less than superb. Shell out a decent amount and you would be amazed.

I purchased a top-of-the-range JVC HR-J935 Hi-Fi video recorder (next one up is S-VHS ) for about GBP 450 in '96 and remain
impressed with its capabilities. The picture and sound quality are excellent thanx to the so called Dynamic drum system. I played
back a TV recording for one of my friends only a few months ago and they asked me how much I had paid for my DVD-recorder.
I told them it wasn't the DVD (I don't have a recorder) but the video playing back and their comment was "No way you get sound
like that from a VCR!". I had to stop and eject the tape to convince them I was on the level.

It is a clever VCR and when you fast forward or rewind in playback mode, you don't get the white lines across the screen.
You get a clear picture - and at selected REW/FWD speeds, you even get the sound - not squiggly cartoon like-like noises,
but proper sound - at normal speed, sampled and played back normally so you can actually hear which portion of the tape you
are rewinding/forwarding. You can also record a HiFi track alongside the normal mono audio track and the two don't have to be
the same! The only drawback with the VCR is that it respects copyright - and the manual doesn't tell you about this! You can
record anything off TV, Hi-8 or a purchased video, you can't copy a video from Blockbusters! It has the so called microvision
technology which is a real pain for people prepared to disregard copyright law. I know you can buy gadgets off the internet
which strip the microvision macro and enable you to get round this problem, but these are only just now surfacing and I have
had my VCR since 96.

So, while it may be true to say that dollar for dollar you'd get better picture and sound from a DVD player - by miles -
it is not a universal fact that all VCRs are terrible

>> Another thing I always hated about VHS tapes is that they were so huge.

Now is this really true? The DVD itself might be very small compared with the tape, but the packaging does bring the
both of them on near level pegging so that's a moot point regarding storage unless one is talking disc without the case.
I think DVD covers should have been designed the same size as ordinary audio CDs to really make that point stick.

I think it is fair to put down the VCR on the basis of 'features' rather than trying to go the full mile and label them 'rubbish'
on quality grounds because the fact of the matter is that you get what you pay for.

Vinyl has in recent times put up an amazing come back as true audiophiles demand quality and the companies concede
that the sound quality on vinyl is better than CD - so much so that Sony has released a new format called SACD (super
Audio CD) to try and match (and presumably better) vinyl by emulating as closely as possible the data pattern in the vinyl
groove. Yet, when you look back to when CD first hit the scene, one of the selling points was that it was a higher quality than
vinyl!

I will not for a minute presume to state that VHS, or S-VHS even can match DVD. But I will move though, that you would be
hard pushed to tell - on the basis of picture and 2-channel stereo sound alone - the difference between DVD and a very good
quality VCR.

One person's opinion