TDK blank S-VHS ST-160 okay?
 

Thrifted ten blank TDK ST-160s. As someone who still tapes television animation, I was wondering how the quality of these would compare to ST-120s. Not sure if they use the same tape stock or if one is thinner. Regardless, I'm wondering if I'll notice a picture quality difference.

I need to see a photo.

The problem with thrift store blank VHS tapes is you have no idea if those were in a closet for the past 10+ years, in the attic, the garage, etc. The same is true of film.

TDK tapes were excellent, but the EOL were more prone to dropout.

I have less than 25 blank tapes now, mostly TDK and JVC.

I do have "blank space" left on some old camcorder and VCR recording tapes, and hope to someday make a long guide (and Youtube video) about tape quality. It can help people learn which tapes in their collection need attention now, if not already. Some tapes are now 50 years old, and we're well within the 35-65 year window of tape failure. Early 80s BASF is the worst of the worst, I've seen that too many times now.

Here are my photos. The photo that contains standard VHS laid out on the floor with the Super VHS is how I ranked them from my previous knowledge I got from you on this site.

PS although I agree with my boyfriend’s sentimentality somewhat, my boyfriend was sad I broke 30 year old glue to get the cardboard box open. lol

Those ST-160 look nice.

I'm actually more impressed by the DSP 120. Those had gorgeous grain and color retention.

FYI:

When it comes to VHS tapes, tape fade is a myth. Color data is magnetic (FM encoded), not optical. Any perceived fading is always either
(1) misremembering, or
(2) the playback VCR or viewing device processing the colors more muted.

However, at recording time, VHS tapes can record with better color fidelity. Magnetic recorded data can be "more sparse", leading to not just poor color, but dropouts, more grain, luma/chroma shifting, etc. Cheap tapes often even cause tracking/alignment issues, due to looseness of the tapes as it moved through the transport.

This is why the quality of a VHS tape mattered so much, and "gas station" grade no-name VHS tapes made for pitiful quality. Whereas those TDK DSP should be outstanding.

TDK DSP was right up there with Maxell Gold (pre~1999) and JVC EX.

Fuji and Kodak were crap. You still find "tape traders" who like those, but it was due to cheap costs, not quality. They're misremembering, confusing (and conflating) blank CD-R/DVD-R with VHS tapes. Everybody knew Fuji was garbage in the 90s, but those Taiyo Yuden Fuji CD/DVD, and Kodak Mitsui CD-R, were quite good. In general, people have terrible memories. I remember this stuff because I wrote it down at the time, writing guides for others, way back when.

Do you think I’d get good S-VHS recordings on the TDK DSP and TDK Hi-Fi if I did the “drill a hole” trick?

Off topic: I don’t own any D-VHS equipment but I imagine if someone tried to record D-VHS data to a standard VHS it would look very corrupted due to the poor tape stock, like playing a DVD VOB out of context in VLC that hasn’t been decrypted.

Please correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t EX a Maxell formulation branding/tape? I have never heard of JVC EX. However, I will say that based on my own research, that the very best tapes (at least in the mid to late 1990s, the “peak” era for tape and tape mechanism quality/engineering) were JVC S-XZ Super VHS PRO and TDK XP SUPER PRO. Maxell BQ was also very nice, but again, just for VHS. Maxell SVHS was junk apparently.

This thread is really digging up memories. :D

Do not drill! The shavings always end up in the tape, in the VCR, against the heads. :mad4:

Melt the hole. I learned the trick from a broadcaster who was getting tired of messes and gear repairs.

However, also heed his/my advice. Either:
- just buy S-VHS tapes
- use a VCR that doesn't need the hole, like JVC ET mode. But some others have bypasses built in

I no longer remember what he used to melt. I had a large nail from the hardware store, heated over the gas stove, gripped in pliers. Not the safest, which is why I didn't do it more than a few times. Fire isn't all that safe either.

Nope, I'm wrong...

One of my VHS test tapes -- actually personal recordings from Cartoon Network in the 90s, recorded as S-VHS-ET EP -- is on a a JVC SX 120 tape. On the back is this nifty chart.

SX ~ 3-4 star
EHG ~ 4-5 stars
PRO ~ 4-5 stars
S-XG ~ all 5 stars

The chart is really arbitrary and silly, not technical in any way. Useless for a technical perspective. More nostalgia than anything else, and a list of "what existed".

For CN, I just needed SX, those were "cheap", ~$3.50/each, in bulk. (Actual "cheap tapes", no name junk, were ~$2 each or less. Blank tape costs quickly tanked by -50% between 1995 and 2000, so giving $$ costs sometimes doesn't track perfectly.)

You are correct, not JVC EX. My mistake. I have some JVC EHG.

These SX were "assembled in the USA".

TDK had "E-HG", not EHG. I have many, many of those. At least 300, conservative estimate. The TDK have held up after many plays. I can't say the same about the JVC, although most are from S-VHS-ET EP use, which was somewhat abusive to the tape, so it's not really a fair comparison.

Tapes are a decade-old+ project that I may give attention to later this year. I used to think nobody cared, it didn't matter anymore. But it's not the case. I guess people like me need to write down what we know and knew, have samples of, while we can.

I never did much S-VHS recording, so I never had TDK S-VHS tapes (always JVC). For regular VHS blanks TDK was always my favorite, preferred brand. I don't think I ever had a DSP grade tape; but lots of the Hi-Fi, EHG and Vivid grades, along with a few HS. I actually thought the chroma level was lower on the HS grade vs. the higher grade, but like Lordsmurf said grain retention and (lack of) dropouts were always top notch.

I know longer tape lengths were never ideal, but at one point I had a T-180 EHG tape, the longest length offered by TDK and only at EHG grade. I don't know what happened to it, so the recordings on it never got digitzed, unfortunately.