Since reading this thread I have been analyzing what I watch. To my eyes 90% of all pre digital era looks like VHS at best. Even BBC stuff. If there is 5.5 Mhz bandwidth you would never know. Subjectively 2 MHz. Interestingly the BBC engineers in the 1950's saw 3 MHz as just about OK for 405 lines.
A friend said very early BBC video can be very good. This seems to be up to 1972 and can be seen on BBC4 music programs. What seems to have happened is to cut cost U-matic was used. I suspect subjectively U-matic to Beta is not a vast leap. On paper U-matic was clearly better, I have doubts.
A friend said very early BBC video can be very good. This seems to be up to 1972 and can be seen on BBC4 music programs. What seems to have happened is to cut cost U-matic was used. I suspect subjectively U-matic to Beta is not a vast leap. On paper U-matic was clearly better, I have doubts.
Stratus: The transition to ATSC 3.0 is going to be gradual - broadcasters will cooperate (a new thing) but will start off with continuing to send most of what they are now broadcasting in ATSC 1.0 - with one shared tower for 3.0 (they will cut back a little on current offerings maybe reduced bitrate, maybe dropping a subchannel). Over time, as ATSC 3.0 devices fill the market, the situation will reverse - with ATSC 1.0 being on a single lighthouse tower and the rest doing 3.0
ATSC 3.0 has moved to H.265 video coding (HEVC), which is about 4x more efficient for the same video quality. It will allow 4K OTA broadcast, but that's not all that interesting since few people can tell the difference with typical viewing distances & screen sizes. The other UHD features - HDR, WCG, HFR are really where the impact is (and they don't take much additional bitrate).
Rich
ATSC 3.0 has moved to H.265 video coding (HEVC), which is about 4x more efficient for the same video quality. It will allow 4K OTA broadcast, but that's not all that interesting since few people can tell the difference with typical viewing distances & screen sizes. The other UHD features - HDR, WCG, HFR are really where the impact is (and they don't take much additional bitrate).
Rich
Those are nice captures, clean and a little soft, the way good SDTV should be.
Alas it's not going to look like that once it's made it onto VHS, nor will it look that good once it's gone thru all the gear to get from broadcast to your TV.
It's the very low color resolution of VHS that bothers most of us. While VHS, Beta and U-Matic can look good, in practice it usually didn't.
Yes I know. Through my testing 99% of the problems stem from the quality of the broadcasted signal, so you are correct, the majority of the signal degradation via OTA programming in the old days was due to equipment quality at the tower and studio, most likely due to cost cutting. The worst signal I've ever received was via Ku Band satellite on the Ovation and TCM channels on Foxtel whereby they fed the signal through a cheap and nasty low capacity digital NTSC to PAL converter box where the signal looked like it had been captured at half frame or CIF and then put through budgie wire. This was the case during the analog years as well as when they transitioned over to digital for satellite reception. The only difference in the digital era was that they added digital blocking to the "picture" in their MPEG1 signals. You could get a better picture from a 40 year old VCR.
The best signals I've ever received were via analog satellite and via VHF OTA TV when the camera was the only thing plugged into the transmitter and the tape was broadcast quality Betacam SP (this was late 90s). AKA Wildfeeds. Unfortunately the only way we could have remembered these signals is if we recorded them onto tape, which Nigel has found out above, is all we've got left of the analog era.
You are partially incorrect about VHS, I can get excellent results with VHS tape. The only difference is the quality of the VCR itself and its cables. Poor condition power supply and you will get wow and flutter and wavy lines in a test signal on any tape, no matter what it is, because the power supply quality of the VCR is simply poor. A bad coax cable for the video will get you a signal that is either weak or intermittent in the color signal or has interference lines (due to reflection/standing waves?) or is being restricted in bandwidth via the capacitance of the cable and you then get very bizarre blurring.
To take the cable out of the equation I'm using quad shield RG6 with crimp RCA connectors. They are very thick and difficult to manage but they provide excellent results.
A high quality VCR on the recording end AND a high quality broadcast signal with high quality source material will result in a great capture on my end. You won't get that with re-recorded tapes, but you MIGHT get that with pre-recorded tapes such as ones released for purchase with movies dubbed professionally onto them and this is where I will gladly defend the home VHS scene and their "wacky" nostalgia trips in collecting old VHS tapes.
I will be putting up some test samples of various VHS tapes that I have here to test sometime soon, the picture quality isn't that bad, the only difference I can see visually when comparing it to the loopback is that there is very minute levels of wow and flutter added to the picture and a loss of TVL resolution, down to 270-240 TVL from 500TVL.
I'm glad that studios and OTA broadcast towers have gone digital. They couldn't broadcast a high quality analog signal worth a damn. But when they did it was good.
The best signals I've ever received were via analog satellite and via VHF OTA TV when the camera was the only thing plugged into the transmitter and the tape was broadcast quality Betacam SP (this was late 90s). AKA Wildfeeds. Unfortunately the only way we could have remembered these signals is if we recorded them onto tape, which Nigel has found out above, is all we've got left of the analog era.
You are partially incorrect about VHS, I can get excellent results with VHS tape. The only difference is the quality of the VCR itself and its cables. Poor condition power supply and you will get wow and flutter and wavy lines in a test signal on any tape, no matter what it is, because the power supply quality of the VCR is simply poor. A bad coax cable for the video will get you a signal that is either weak or intermittent in the color signal or has interference lines (due to reflection/standing waves?) or is being restricted in bandwidth via the capacitance of the cable and you then get very bizarre blurring.
To take the cable out of the equation I'm using quad shield RG6 with crimp RCA connectors. They are very thick and difficult to manage but they provide excellent results.
A high quality VCR on the recording end AND a high quality broadcast signal with high quality source material will result in a great capture on my end. You won't get that with re-recorded tapes, but you MIGHT get that with pre-recorded tapes such as ones released for purchase with movies dubbed professionally onto them and this is where I will gladly defend the home VHS scene and their "wacky" nostalgia trips in collecting old VHS tapes.
I will be putting up some test samples of various VHS tapes that I have here to test sometime soon, the picture quality isn't that bad, the only difference I can see visually when comparing it to the loopback is that there is very minute levels of wow and flutter added to the picture and a loss of TVL resolution, down to 270-240 TVL from 500TVL.
I'm glad that studios and OTA broadcast towers have gone digital. They couldn't broadcast a high quality analog signal worth a damn. But when they did it was good.
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I just watched some 1970's US TV. Way below VHS. I'm sure that's about what people watched. When Richard Nixon one just watches. I know tapes degrade. All the same the BBC ones are better.
This was our Ch94 American Public Service Broadcasting. Very good TV, UK viewers.
I suspect both Beta and VHS made the very best of what they had.
This was our Ch94 American Public Service Broadcasting. Very good TV, UK viewers.
I suspect both Beta and VHS made the very best of what they had.
Have you seen the videos available on archive.org in their classic tv section? Classic TV : Free Movies : Free Download, Borrow and Streaming : Internet Archive
I'm watching Petticoat Junction at the moment.
Their commercials section is here: Internet Archive Search: collection
relinger AND tv commercialI don't know what their source material is. tape or film. It sure looks good.
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One thing I watch a lot is 1965 black and white film. Stunning. I guess when done well it stretches HD TV, Sometimes good copies of 1950's Bilko are shown ( Cartoon Top Cat was that team without Mr Silvers ). They need HD. I suspect plenty of Laural and Hardy need HD. The film due to location are highly saturated and good lenses used. The one where they own an electrical shop especially good. Some 1950's stuff they did is either a bad copy or just bad. Stan was a mathematician and Oliver trained as an opera singer. Ironically silent movies made them famous.
I watched a 1918 womens football match ( Blythe Spartans ). Wow they were good and wow so was the quality of film. Not bad where no lighting was used. I was told by a photographer that computers ruined lens. He argued in the past the lens designer choose what matters most. He argued contrast can become a low priority. In modern lenses I see a balanced performance so feel this criticism no longer applies. Even so some old films are stunning if your brain can do black and white. Colour films that might have been black and white sometimes retain the magic.
YouTube
YouTube
When using U-matic the big problem was could someone justify an Ikigami camera. As a semiprofessional device £20 000 a lot of money when that would get you far up the BMW car range. The Sony for about £750 would still beat off air TV. Philip's had one that I suspect was £400. It wasn't desperately worse and would work at very low light levels. Good black and white cameras were about £180. You know In don't think we ever supplied a Beta with a black and white camera and monitor. Doubtless my boss would see it as immoral.
We often did not use Trinitron monitors. I never got involved with that. Barco and Loewe I suspect.
If a Beta was tested for proper bandwidth using the Ikigami cameras it really would ask questions as to how good Beta could be. Very good. Like SD TV is covers it's tracks well. U-matic to Beta was an opaque haze the U-matic didn't have. For all that the U-matic lost something. It was slightly bland with mildly washed out colours. Early PAL 625 data suggested 8 MHz ideal bandwidth. I would guess at 3 MHz moving to 8 MHz the improvement is exponential. That is it's not quite double.
I watched a 1918 womens football match ( Blythe Spartans ). Wow they were good and wow so was the quality of film. Not bad where no lighting was used. I was told by a photographer that computers ruined lens. He argued in the past the lens designer choose what matters most. He argued contrast can become a low priority. In modern lenses I see a balanced performance so feel this criticism no longer applies. Even so some old films are stunning if your brain can do black and white. Colour films that might have been black and white sometimes retain the magic.
YouTube
YouTube
When using U-matic the big problem was could someone justify an Ikigami camera. As a semiprofessional device £20 000 a lot of money when that would get you far up the BMW car range. The Sony for about £750 would still beat off air TV. Philip's had one that I suspect was £400. It wasn't desperately worse and would work at very low light levels. Good black and white cameras were about £180. You know In don't think we ever supplied a Beta with a black and white camera and monitor. Doubtless my boss would see it as immoral.
We often did not use Trinitron monitors. I never got involved with that. Barco and Loewe I suspect.
If a Beta was tested for proper bandwidth using the Ikigami cameras it really would ask questions as to how good Beta could be. Very good. Like SD TV is covers it's tracks well. U-matic to Beta was an opaque haze the U-matic didn't have. For all that the U-matic lost something. It was slightly bland with mildly washed out colours. Early PAL 625 data suggested 8 MHz ideal bandwidth. I would guess at 3 MHz moving to 8 MHz the improvement is exponential. That is it's not quite double.
Am I right Betacam was never sold as a stand alone U-matic type recorder without camera? Although historic now it would have made sense and could have supported 24 bit audio perhaps? I am not thinking of Beta digital.
Years after I left the world of Sony I got a Sony award!!!! It was for audio.
Years after I left the world of Sony I got a Sony award!!!! It was for audio.
You did read my earlier post about the Sony pro S-VHS, right? It was also good with normal VHS. Some of the JVC pro decks we had were clean, but not as clean as the Sony. So yes, definitely the deck makes a difference. The cables are trivial to get right, at least for runs under 30 meters.
But in practical terms and with consumer equipment, DVD was a huge step forward. Early DVD encoding wasn't the best, but that soon sorted itself out.
I've been doing pro video for 30 years. VHS always looked like crap. Maybe it didn't have to, but it did. It's all most people had. Glad it's gone.
Yes there are plenty of DVD players and still lots of VHS machines, but the undisputed king of discarded electronics is still the ink jet printer.
Sherri an I made a 200 mile loop in western Pennsylvania today. We make a similar journey once or twice a month. The stops and total distance vary with the start time, traffic, weather and several other factors. The usual stops include Sam's Club, Ikea (for the last chance and "as is" section), Trader Joes, and as many thrift stores as possible. I think there are 10 Goodwills, 4 consignment shops for kids clothes, and about 8 other stores on the long loop (200 miles) if we get an early start and good traffic. I used to hit the Guitar Center near Ikea, but they got rid of their as-is table.
Today's journey hit 5 Goodwill stores and two other thrift stores. I got one vinyl record, 7 CD's and a TI-83 plus calculator (working) all for under $20 total. There was one to three printers in each store.
My best score, a 1958 vintage Hammond M-3 tonewheel organ in excellent working condition for $39.95 at a Goodwill store near Pittsburgh.
Agreed.
I'm here to establish just how good/crap it truly was.
For the sake of the honor of the VHS/Betamax empire.
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Perhaps their former owners got sick and tired of the malware in the device drivers which hijacks your browser and redirects you to their website to buy ink cartridges. Which cost darn near as much as the printer did, of course.
I think inkjets can't hold a candle to color laser printers, my friends - a $129 printer comes with starter set of 4 cartridges good for a few hundred? pages, then when you look at price of complete replacement set, it can be more than double the initial price. The old Gillette formula? - get you hooked on the cheap razor, but when the blades wear out ... Hang on, maybe that partly explains the whole hipster beard thing currently in vogue ?
as for the VHS/ Beta, AFAIC it's chalk and cheese. As I was "blessed?" to work for a retailer of Sony at the time the format war was at its peak, and during that period owned several - including the quite wonderful SLHF750. At any given point in time, none of VHS machines I ever had an opportunity to play with could come close to the resolution of the Betas -even as a starving newlywed couple, we were always willing to pay the premium for the performance - of course we also owned nothing but Trinitrons or XBRs until my first big Plasma flatscreen. Too bad Sony ****** up the marketing so bigly - but several decades later did extract their own form of revenge? This is really a case where nothing but expletives are sufficient - but I digress.
Hang on, maybe that partly explains the whole hipster beard thing currently in vogue ? as for the VHS/ Beta, AFAIC it's chalk and cheese. As I was "blessed?" to work for a retailer of Sony at the time the format war was at its peak, and during that period owned several - including the quite wonderful SLHF750. At any given point in time, none of VHS machines I ever had an opportunity to play with could come close to the resolution of the Betas -even as a starving newlywed couple, we were always willing to pay the premium for the performance - of course we also owned nothing but Trinitrons or XBRs until my first big Plasma flatscreen. Too bad Sony ****** up the marketing so bigly - but several decades later did extract their own form of revenge? This is really a case where nothing but expletives are sufficient - but I digress.
Yes that's right. I have to admit this interest is not what I had at the time. My boss wanted me to learn, on the other hand found I got to answers too quickly which didn't please him. I mostly learned enough to help out. I am ashamed to say I was astonished to read how good Beta professional was, I had no idea.
As to living in the past. Some aspects of even 1918 films asks the most of HD TV. Technicolor is stunning in it's ability to preserve detail and colour . Sadly much of the early colour films are lost. Good colour predates sound. If you watch the film Aviator it drifts from two colour to mark the era ( I guess ).
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipe...mtechnicolor.jpg/250px-Phantomtechnicolor.jpg
Maybe someone can tell me what tape format was used to archive this footage for 35 years: YouTube
I've got a copy of it of my own on Betamax (identical to whats show on the youtube video, plus the full movie recorded off of the TEN network.) (Received my Toshiba V-33 Beta Deck this morning so I've been able to see whats on the tapes that I've bought) and its pretty poorish quality (reception wanes after half way into the film) but I'll archive it anyway as its still worthwhile at least making a file of it.
I've got a copy of it of my own on Betamax (identical to whats show on the youtube video, plus the full movie recorded off of the TEN network.) (Received my Toshiba V-33 Beta Deck this morning so I've been able to see whats on the tapes that I've bought) and its pretty poorish quality (reception wanes after half way into the film) but I'll archive it anyway as its still worthwhile at least making a file of it.
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We measured VHS and Beta. In the scale of what's possible which is exponential the differences were slight. Some of this might have been set up and Beta being more sensitive to it. My boss spent his life adjusting Sony recorders. It's like hi fi guys and VTA on pickups. He was known to be the best at this. He took days sometimes because he believed the Beta specs. He took pride in being good at it. If me I would have had words with the supplier. I suspect the VHS could do book spec off of the production line.
One way to test this was a test card and good quality camera. It's interesting to see how much of the test card was not recorded. The comparison to me would be I am 6 foot 3 so I am tall, you are 5 foot 11 and you are short. The way people talk implies 5 foot. The card would be 10 foot.
I can not say about NTSC, it might show things I never saw. VHS was always like Curry to me, good colour without real detail. Beta was less colourful with better detail whilst being obviously less good than live transmissions. I am convinced the Beta myth was Sony overplaying their hand, then refusing to offer licenses. I know Sony of the time like my own family. Sanyo Beta was superb, cheap and very well made. I bought a Toshiba VHS ( Sony component company as were Sanyo ). It was made by Philips and was first class. The original pre Beta Philips VCR was great, it was a bit troublesome.
One way to test this was a test card and good quality camera. It's interesting to see how much of the test card was not recorded. The comparison to me would be I am 6 foot 3 so I am tall, you are 5 foot 11 and you are short. The way people talk implies 5 foot. The card would be 10 foot.
I can not say about NTSC, it might show things I never saw. VHS was always like Curry to me, good colour without real detail. Beta was less colourful with better detail whilst being obviously less good than live transmissions. I am convinced the Beta myth was Sony overplaying their hand, then refusing to offer licenses. I know Sony of the time like my own family. Sanyo Beta was superb, cheap and very well made. I bought a Toshiba VHS ( Sony component company as were Sanyo ). It was made by Philips and was first class. The original pre Beta Philips VCR was great, it was a bit troublesome.
Nigel - yes Betacam was a really good format and you've likely seen 1000s of hours that was shot on it. It certainly did come as a stand-alone deck which is mostly what I used. The were large and expensive. I remember putting a portable Betacam SP deck in my car once and thinking "this thing costs more than my car." Betcam and Betcam SP were the standard workhorse throughout the 1990s. I had seen them before, but couldn't afford to use them.
JVC had the MII (M two) format the some people used and loved. At one point JVC came out with digital VHS and I saw it at the NAB show in Vegas. Looked great! it was a. pro format. Didn't last long, as I recall.
For years now we record onto hard drives in ProRes format. With ProRes you to to choose the quality you want, higher quality just means larger files. ProRes is a "gently compressed" format.
JVC had the MII (M two) format the some people used and loved. At one point JVC came out with digital VHS and I saw it at the NAB show in Vegas. Looked great! it was a. pro format. Didn't last long, as I recall.
For years now we record onto hard drives in ProRes format. With ProRes you to to choose the quality you want, higher quality just means larger files. ProRes is a "gently compressed" format.
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