Forum - View topicAnswerman - How Were VHS Releases Mastered?
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MarshalBanana
 Posts: 5315 |
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The days of VHS, kids today don't know the horror of it; having to rewind after watching, no duel audio, dust getting in and f**king up your video player, tearing to certain parts of the film, that you can to fast-forward past and having to track because the picture went all funny.
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EricJ2
 Posts: 4016 |
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I had a dream only last night about having to use one of those auto-rewinders on an old tape. Most new kids will never have that experience buried in their subconscious. 
(That's why they're all going to digital, they don't know the days when you preserved your Totoro fansub in the fear it would be gone forever if you lost it or played/FF'ed it too many times, and were relieved when it finally came out on DVD/Blu. Fear inspired the value of possession, and the care of curating a collection.) Last edited by EricJ2 on Wed Dec 23, 2015 6:56 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Desa
 Posts: 285 |
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Yeah I don't miss VHS at all. There was only one bright side to VHS and that was rental VHS tapes vs rental DVD discs. Back when video rental stores like Blockbuster were still around there was a time when they offered movies in both VHS and DVD and I would usually opt for VHS because rental DVDs were often badly damaged and wouldn't play properly, whereas the VHS tape, no matter how bad it got in some parts it at least never stopped playing so you could always ride out the worst of the static until it got better, which is always better than having the movie just stop halfway because of a deep scratch and just giving up.
Admittedly, before DVR devices like Tivo became popular, VHS tapes made recording live TV dead simple. I have a Quasar CRT TV with a built-in VHS tape deck and all you had to do to record a show was insert a blank VHS tape and press "Record". That's it. You could also record DVD movies onto VHS for.... reasons. Be kind. Rewind! |
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PurpleWarrior13
 Posts: 2025 |
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Oh god, I have a lot of memories watching stuff on VHS tapes, but I don't miss it. The only anime I owned in the format was Dragon Ball Z, Pokemon, and Revolutionary Girl Utena. Those tapes were very poorly made compared to stuff from Disney and Warner. I was addicted to recording stuff off of TV, and I still have many of those tapes today. I haven't owned a working VCR in years, but if I still had one, those would be the only ones I'd be interested in watching again, especially the ones with the commercials left in.
But the format really did suck. Tapes would get stuck, the image quality was poor, the things would break, you needed to rewind them, it took forever if you wanted to reach a specific scene, there were little to no bonus features, and the physical tape would stretch a bit every time you played them, meaning the quality deteriorates a little with each playback. I had a couple shitty cassettes with stretched tape that would fast forward on their own, they were in such bad condition. I also had an automatic rewinder that had a habit of breaking tapes. That final jolt came with some serious consequences. I would imagine doing video editing with those things was interesting, but also a nightmare. We're spoiled these days with Final Cut Pro and Sony Vegas. |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2443 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Blacking your tapes to have consistent timecode… oh man, I had forgotten about that.
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Paiprince
 Posts: 593 |
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I don't miss VHS, but I do Laserdiscs. Barring their enormous size, their video and quality were deemed superior to DVD's at the time. Ironically, for all their hugeness, one side can only store up to 325MB which is laughably pathetic today. Now I'm remembering my uncle's laserdiscs of Macross, Dominion Tank Police and Akira. Makes me want to invest on my own equipment and discs.
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Usagi-kun
 Posts: 877 Location: Nashville, TN |
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I remember having to rewind tapes. I also remember occasionally coming across 'check' tapes in used media stores before the dvd format took hold. After it did, the huge discounts on tapes they were trying to unload were incredible, and I learned to ignore the occasional time stamps and non-distribution stickers. I remember one place in particular that I could walk to from my house. I would buy stacks of these tapes at those prices, and I was thrilled to own any tapes at all. So now...it is kind of funny to look back.
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Shay Guy
 Posts: 2112 |
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Ah, memories...
Not that I miss those days, but it was nice on occasion to be able to cue a tape to a specific point. And... that's about it. I watched a movie on VHS this year, for the first time in God knows how many years. We could've gotten the DVD from Netflix, but the tape was in our library. |
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Hoppy800
 Posts: 3331 |
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Ewww, no wonder anime was so expensive back then. The process was hell, time consuming, and expensive. As for VHS horror stories, I had 3 VHS tapes stuck in my VCR before.
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EricJ2
Posts: 4016 |
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Well, that, and the option of having to make dubs OR subs, and then only selling the subs to a limited niche market if at all. Remember those old wartime days? |
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wandering-dreamer
 Posts: 1733 |
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Heh, I totally had to order DigiBeta/BetaSP tape master copies for work just a couple of months back, one of my coworkers attempted to teach me the differences but unfortunately it didn't stick
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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Ahh yes the VHS era it was the best of times it was the worst of times, my family had a ton of videotapes of various movies even still today and we wouldn't rewind them until almost every single one was watched so when it came time to rewind there was a mountain of VHS tapes and we had only two rewinders so it took hours and hours to finish and put the tapes back in their boxes I do not miss those days at all.
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invalidname
Contributor Posts: 2443 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Also that when you had a title with both sub and dub VHS versions, the sub would cost $10 more, even though it cost less to make. The reason being: sub fans were willing to pay that price. First rule of Capitalism, kids: stuff is worth what people will pay for it. |
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noigeL
Posts: 149 |
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[quote="EricJ2"]
I wasn't aware they were over. |
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Polycell
 Posts: 4623 |
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But I'd sure hate to have to deal with a TV-VCR if it ever decided to go OM-NOM-NOM. At least settop boxes you could take the tops off and get the tape out without much further damage, but somehow I think your options are more limited when there's a giant vacuum tube in the way. |
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