VHS, you shouldn't be able to do that!

[Tasuke]

these photos were taken as the tape was in motion. 1988 JVC HR-S8000U S-VHS, in VHS SP mode, 240 line res,
on an NOS 1985 MAXELL "HGX GOLD HI-FI" blank, recording direct from a 1998/2000 PIONEER DV-09 DVDP,
and displayed on a 1080p-capable LCD monitor.

watching this recording in motion, it pretty much consistently looks as crisp and clean as these photos suggest;

[Belmont]

That looks quite nice. It could do without being stretched to 16:9 (unless you managed to somehow put 16:9 video on an SVHS cassette), but overall, it looks quite nice. I don't really see the purpose of recording the DVD to SVHS, unless you didn't have the DVD and had to copy it from a friend (or you wanted to make a backup incase of disc damage or whatever). Otherwise, it just seems to be a waste of tape. But hey, why not?

[Tasuke]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Belmont

That looks quite nice. It could do without being stretched to 16:9 (unless you managed to somehow put 16:9 video on an SVHS cassette), but overall, it looks quite nice. I don't really see the purpose of recording the DVD to SVHS, unless you didn't have the DVD and had to copy it from a friend (or you wanted to make a backup incase of disc damage or whatever). Otherwise, it just seems to be a waste of tape. But hey, why not?

oh, for the pure sake of it. Anime, on DVD, is the highest-res non-MACROVISIONed SD format available to me, and i like to make reference quality VHS and S-VHS recordings on at least one or two copies, (depending on how many NOS copies happen to be available to me) of every brand and variety of NOS vintage VHS and S-VHS blanks that i manage to get hold of.

i have many more reference-quality recordings, all Anime, (for the reasons stated above) i just chose this one to show off, as i felt it was one of the best (if not THE best) dub of them all. it is colorful, sharp and crisp, and the characters are well-detailed and aesthetically appealing (IMO) and it just startled me, here, with just how much of those qualities were so faithfully transposed from a 450/500-line format, such as the master DVD, to a top-quality, for it's time, but nevertheless comparatively piddling 240-line format, uch as the MAXELL HGX GOLD Hi-Fi VHS blank that i selected...

[admin]

It does look nice and clean.
This is quite possible with excellent commercial sources, from companies that used quality tapes and recording/transfer methods.

Your highlights are blown out, of course. I'm betting this is adjusted to Japanese NTSC values.

[VideoTechMan]

I know this thread is a few months old, but wanted to add something regarding the 16:9 mode.

On the pro VTR's its possible to record a 16:9 signal, which is commonly known as the 'WIDE' mode. Depending on the source, if it was originally recorded in the wide format, then the playback VCR (compatible with wide-mode playback) can indeed play it back in its correct aspect ratio. Of course I think most anime was done in 4:3 since alot of the HDTV's tend to stretch it to 16:9. Nevertheless it still looks great, still beats 240 lines from VHS.

[jmac698]

I've done this myself, and yes it looks pretty good. Recording anamorphic to VHS is easy, just set the DVD player to widescreen, and what comes out is a full frame anamorphic video. When playing back the VHS, just put the TV itself into wide mode. This is the best way to do it, even if the VHS somehow can do a scaling.
Take a look at my sample here http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...l-tbc-vhs.html
and that wasn't even SVHS!

[Tasuke]

1988 MITSUBISHI HS-U80 this is my latest, a most handsome machine.

alas, it's PQ is notably inferior to the JVC HR-S8000U...

[sanlyn]

[EDIT].
Never mind.

[admin]

Is that ghosting on the source, or caused by the VCR? You can see it in the subtitles.

[Tasuke]

i don't recall any sort of Ghosting visible during playback, so i dunno...

[sanlyn]

In the first post of distorted, washed-out, fuzzy images there is left-edge ghosting and chroma shift. In the Mitsubishi images there's ghosting and chroma bleed, some vertical moire that looks like RF noise. Didn't want to get into it because there's not much you can tell from photos off a TV screen (other than that the TV's appear to be uncalibrated, but that could just be the way the camera treated the color temperature of the TV's backlight). All you can really tell is that an image appeared and it filled the screen. This seems to be the limit of current video standards for many people.

So that's why I really didn't wanna get into it in my earlier [edited] post.

[Tasuke]

my 46" LCD is quite good, for a $600 WORST BUY house brand, and just about their last model
to sport onboard Analog video processing, but it just dosn't seem to have the calibration features
that evidently the higher-end/well respected name brand models do.

about the only thing i can do, -to ensure that it produces best analog image it is capable of-
is to make sure all DNR is disabled, which i have long since done,
as this monitor's digital NR made all my SD sources look like absolute S&%T...

[sanlyn]

Sure, I think everyone understands that. Who's to say how the TV screen affects a camera with no special setup for it? And there's the video itself, pretty much an unknown quantity (but why do people have to stretch the picture?). That TV DNR is a pain, along with the 120Hz gimmick, auto-white, and all that. It's digital, right? Supposed to be perfect and noise free (we know it isn't, but what can you do?).

But, say, you could do more than just turn off DNR. There's ye good olde DVE calibration disc. Not great, very limited, but better than what the factory gives you. The BluRay edition is out now, but there are old SD versions around if you don't have a BD player. There are even some uTube videos showing how to do it.

Then again, if you really wanna do it right.....there's this older version of a very popular site using free HCFR software and an i1 Display2 (there's a newer version, too, but the stuff costs more money): http://www.curtpalme.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10457

Most folks won't go through that much trouble. But you can learn a lot from browsing that site.

[SFtheGreat]

So basically how is it done?

The tape is recorded with anamorphic widescreen that needs to be stretched upon playback?

Or does the VCR have the option to convert incoming widescreen signal to record it not as letterbox, not cropped, but as anamorphic signal?

Would it be possible to simply feed it with SD video with PAR of 1,33 to be then stretched upon playback by the TV?
Like create a master on the PC, play it from PC, SD BD, or DV tape?

[NJRoadfan]

The tape is recorded using an anamorphic widescreen signal. Whats more annoying is when a station transmits a 4:3 program with pillar bars anamorphic (I'm looking at you Heros & Icons).

[SFtheGreat]

Great, so I just need to output 720x576 anamorphic signal to the VCR and it will record anamorphic image to be then converted by the TV screen, to enjoy the anamorphic artifacts.

So basically I could output the AVI file from PC via FireWire to DV VCR and pass the signal via S-Video to the S-VHS VCR, correct?

Or directly through D-SUB via adaptor to S-Video?

The only problem would be slight desynchronization due to separate audio and video cables, as they do not have SCART.

[NJRoadfan]

Either way works. Video isn't expected to have square pixels. HDV does the same thing, 16:9 1920x1080 video is stored on tape to 1440x1080 and stretched by the playback device.

[SFtheGreat]

I know, I had that unpleasantness to wotk with HDV on tape.

So everythinh is on the monitor side to correctly display the picture.

I'll try it when I get widescreen TV. I'm all analog still running VHS and 4:3 CRT, well, not entirely, I just invest more in filming and recording gear and I don't have time to use the TV.