digitalFAQ.com Forum - VHS making a comeback in 2012?

digitalFAQ.com Forum (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/)

- General Discussion (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news/)

- - VHS making a comeback in 2012? (https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/news/3932-vhs-making-comeback.html)

VHS making a comeback in 2012?

Apparently the whole "going retro" trend has finally reached video. I can't argue, $1 VHS movies at the thrift store are hard to beat in entertainment value!

http://entertainment.slashdot.org/st...-return-of-vhs

Quote:

"Joshua Phillips writes that something was lost when videos went from magnetic tape and plastic, to plastic discs, and now to digital streams as browsing aisles is no more and the once-great video shops slowly board up their windows across the country. Future generations may know little of the days when buying a movie meant you owned it even if the Internet went down and when getting a movie meant you had to scour aisles of boxes in search of one whose cover art called back a story that echoed your interests. Josh Johnson, one of the filmmakers behind the upcoming documentary 'Rewind This!' hopes to tell the story of how and why home video came about, and how it changed our culture giving B movies and films that didn't make the silver screen their own chance to shine. 'Essentially, the rental market expanded, because of voracious consumer demand, into non-blockbuster, off-Hollywood video content which would never have had a theatrical life otherwise,' says Palmer. While researching the documentary Palmer found something interesting: there is a resurgence taking place of people going back to VHS because a massive number of films are 'trapped on VHS' with 30 and 40 percent of films released on VHS never to be seen again on any other format. 'Most of the true VHS fanatics are children of the 1980s,' says Palmer. 'Whether they are motivated by a sense of nostalgia or prefer the format for the grainy aesthetic qualities of magnetic tape or some other reason entirely unknown, each tapehead is unique like a snowflake.'"

Sounds like a fun documentary in the making, I look forward to seeing it.

Yeah, apparently there are some folks who are using After Effects to recreate the VHS "look".

Meanwhile we are all trying our hardest with advanced software filters to clean up that same patina.

When I see a faked "VHS quality" video like that, I know the people who made it have never seen a lot of messed-up VHS tapes. They've missed the most common problems found on every tape -- softness, grain, lack of true black, chroma shimmering -- but included tracking issues that were far less common. Not to mention lacking the horrible sound of the VCR humming/buzzing when it came to a crinkled section like that.

The timebase errors are overdone.
The color flickering is far too rapid.
It's a nice try, but it's not very realistic from what I can see.

You can also adjust it how you like with my VCR simulator script
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...or-script.html

Quote:

Originally Posted by NJRoadfan (Post 19390)

Apparently the whole "going retro" trend has finally reached video. I can't argue, $1 VHS movies at the thrift store are hard to beat in entertainment value! http://entertainment.slashdot.org/st...-return-of-vhs

Quote:

ndeed. myself, i was born in '82, and VHS, was, of course, the video format i grew up alongside.

today, i honor and respect the Video format of my childhhood. it holds a hallowed place in my heart, as well as my Audio/A/V system;

http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...OHN5-4-111.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...OHN5-4-112.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...HR-S8000U7.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...x175-2-111.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...-VHSST-120.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...ccs1-5-121.jpg
http://i291.photobucket.com/albums/l...YRL6-7-102.jpg

Attachment 2532

Attachment 2533

Attachment 2534

Attachment 2535

Attachment 2536

Attachment 2537

Attachment 2538

-now tell me, in what other Video format (besides BETAMAX) is one to be expected to find media and PB equipment that are such magnificent works of industrial high-art as these?

I highly doubt VHS'll make a comeback in this day and age. Maybe as an ironic hipster thing, but an honest comeback is laughable.

A real comeback is just laughably absurd. Maybe it'll comeback as an ironic, hipster thing. I dunno.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tasuke (Post 20457)

-now tell me, in what other Video format (besides BETAMAX)
is one to be expected to find media and PB equipment
that are such magnificent works of industrial high-art as these?

Ditto. I've still got my dad's old Super-ßeta deck. It's a huge mass of equipment, built to survive a nuclear fallout. I mainly use it to boost/lower audio levels from VHS using the VU/peak level meters and slider.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Belmont (Post 20463)

I highly doubt VHS'll make a comeback in this day and age. Maybe as an ironic hipster thing, but an honest comeback is laughable.

indeed, there is no possible way. it is sentimentality, and nothing else...

At least with LP, there was an argument for quality -- even if it's backwards and wrongheaded.
I've yet to see somebody insist VHS is better quality than DVD or Blu-ray. So a comeback doesn't even have logic.

Those are some nice VCR and tape images, Tasuke. :)

Quote:

Originally Posted by kpmedia (Post 20478)

that's because it clearly isn't. regardless, a QUALITY VHS recording DOES have a certain magic all it's own, and, like i've mentioned before, IIRC, i've made VHS and S-VHS recordings on high-quality stock, all on my JVC HR-S8000U, using Anime DVDs played through a PIONEER DV-09 player, that have not only turned out VERY watchable, but startlingly close to the master in most meaningful respects...

All times are GMT -5. The time now is 12:19 AM