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Doesn't VCR stand for video cassette recorder and VHS stand for Video Home System?
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Apr 17, 2022 01:02
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Video Helical Scan, though double-checking that was the original meaning, at some point it was retconned to the backronym Video Home System.
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Apr 17, 2022 01:06
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That's funny, I grew up with Video Home System and VHS Player.
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Apr 17, 2022 01:20
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VHS is a poo poo format anyway, I have hundreds of the damned things and am digitizing them as fast as I can before they rot away entirely. Call me when there's a UMat revival https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpGR3HjGqhM
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Apr 17, 2022 01:22
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aperfectcirclefan posted:Doesn't VCR stand for video cassette recorder and VHS stand for Video Home System? Yeah. But the machine was always called a VCR. I never heard "VHS player" until the format was considered a relic and in fairness to you being pedantic about it is another annoying autism thing I do because I see "VHS player" and just go "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" even though this is completely irrelevant and has been for like 20 years. Help. pwn posted:VHS is a poo poo format anyway, I have hundreds of the damned things and am digitizing them as fast as I can before they rot away entirely. I've mentioned him a whole bunch of times here but my friend who is a VHS collector just has a huge digital archive of poo poo he's ripped from his own collection and gathered from all over the internet. One day he just casually mentioned that he's been doing this like it's no big deal and I couldn't believe it. He's basically gathered and created digitized all kinds of rare and esoteric movies from all over the world and just doesn't really think it's a thing that he should put out there. Like he just does it and it's whatever.
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Apr 17, 2022 02:05
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CPL593H posted:I never heard "VHS player" until the format was considered a relic and in fairness to you being pedantic about it is another annoying autism thing I do because I see "VHS player" and just go "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" even though this is completely irrelevant and has been for like 20 years. At one point you could rent VHS players (no recording capability) from video stores like Blockbuster.
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Apr 17, 2022 13:12
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I think why people talk about VCRs is that the earliest use for videotape was recording TV broadcasts. That was a big split between the videodisc and videotape wars. Laserdisc offered better picture and sound them VHS/Beta, but you couldn't record. VHS/Beta had good enough video and sound that it didn't matter to most people.
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Apr 17, 2022 14:08
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Cemetry Gator posted:I think why people talk about VCRs is that the earliest use for videotape was recording TV broadcasts. Laserdisc was also the first real showcase for quality home theater audio - it supported digital audio before any other medium, including Dolby Digital surround, and the spec topped out at multichannel 1.5 Mbit DTS HD. That wasn’t lossless, but at a point when fuzzy stereo audio coming out of a CRT was standard, it was a different experience altogether. The video was an incremental improvement, on par with the later S-VHS, but Laserdisc was plural orders of magnitude more likely to have widescreen transfers. Overall it was a really interesting experiment and the first home video format for film connoisseurs. But as you said, VHS was so flexible and ubiquitous (and so much cheaper) that it was always going to win on sheer numbers. That DVD - and the roughly simultaneous emergence of TiVos and set top boxes - toppled VHS so quickly took a lot of people by surprise.
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Apr 17, 2022 15:24
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Laserdisc supported audio commentary as well. Which I discovered when one of the commentary track on the Lawrence of Arabia Blu-ray was dated 1980-something.
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Apr 17, 2022 16:09
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Casimir Radon posted:Laserdisc supported audio commentary as well. Which I discovered when one of the commentary track on the Lawrence of Arabia Blu-ray was dated 1980-something. Lawrence of Arabia has never had a commentary track on any format. Kind of surprised Sony didn't have one recorded for Blu-ray or even UHD (they added a commentary for Anatomy of a Murder, besting the Criterion disc). However, Criterion has included some of their early commentaries on the Blu-rays (such as The Magnificent Ambersons and Swing Time). The Criterion CAV just has some production photos; the CLV has premiere footage, some newsreel excerpts, and a clip of the 1989 restoration premiere. Nothing on the 1983 disc and seems like the Columbia CLV editions (1992 and 1994) have the same supplements as Criterion. Laserdisc did support up to four mono tracks or two stereo tracks. Earlier analog discs like the Criterion King Kong or The Magnificent Ambersons have the mono soundtrack in one analog channel and the commentary in the other. Later discs tended to have the digital tracks be dual mono or stereo, one of the analog tracks have the commentary, and the other being either a mono soundtrack or music/effects. Criterion's Spartacus LD has the film's stereo surround track on the digital tracks, with the two analog tracks being two separate commentaries (one from filmmakers and restorers, the other are Dalton Trumbo's screenplay notations)
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Apr 17, 2022 16:50
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I might be thinking of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.
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Apr 17, 2022 16:53
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Hasturtium posted:Laserdisc was also the first real showcase for quality home theater audio - it supported digital audio before any other medium, including Dolby Digital surround, and the spec topped out at multichannel 1.5 Mbit DTS HD. That wasn’t lossless, but at a point when fuzzy stereo audio coming out of a CRT was standard, it was a different experience altogether. The video was an incremental improvement, on par with the later S-VHS, but Laserdisc was plural orders of magnitude more likely to have widescreen transfers. Overall it was a really interesting experiment and the first home video format for film connoisseurs. But as you said, VHS was so flexible and ubiquitous (and so much cheaper) that it was always going to win on sheer numbers. That DVD - and the roughly simultaneous emergence of TiVos and set top boxes - toppled VHS so quickly took a lot of people by surprise. It's worth noting that Laserdiscs did not take advantage of the AV quality until Criterion came along in 84 and even then it took until the end of the decade for non-potato transfers to become the norm for the format. Same with OAR presentations. Laserdisc's abilities were more of a turning-into-the-skid approach when it was clear VHS was winning.
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Apr 17, 2022 21:27
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Mister Kingdom posted:At one point you could rent VHS players (no recording capability) from video stores like Blockbuster. I remember those. They were encased in a big heavy plastic thing that would survive a war. My family rented on of them once when our own VCR broke. Cemetry Gator posted:I think why people talk about VCRs is that the earliest use for videotape was recording TV broadcasts. There's a really good breakdown of the history of the CED Videodisc, how it works, and why it failed from a guy called Technology Connections on youtube if you're interested in that stuff. It's in three parts and it's very in depth. Hasturtium posted:Laserdisc was also the first real showcase for quality home theater audio - it supported digital audio before any other medium, including Dolby Digital surround, and the spec topped out at multichannel 1.5 Mbit DTS HD. That wasn’t lossless, but at a point when fuzzy stereo audio coming out of a CRT was standard, it was a different experience altogether. The video was an incremental improvement, on par with the later S-VHS, but Laserdisc was plural orders of magnitude more likely to have widescreen transfers. Overall it was a really interesting experiment and the first home video format for film connoisseurs. But as you said, VHS was so flexible and ubiquitous (and so much cheaper) that it was always going to win on sheer numbers. That DVD - and the roughly simultaneous emergence of TiVos and set top boxes - toppled VHS so quickly took a lot of people by surprise. It's not hard to see why DVD replaced VHS so quickly. It was better then tapes by leaps and bounds and it was much more accessible to the average person than laserdisc had been. I distinctly remember the first time I saw a movie on DVD (it was Road Trip, lol). I couldn't believe it. After being a naysaying contrarian about it, admittedly for no reason other than stubbornness, I was immediately won over. CPL593H fucked around with this message at 21:40 on Apr 17, 2022 |
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Apr 17, 2022 21:37
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I think DVD won because you didn't have to rewind the loving things. Is 4k at cinema quality or do we still need another generation or so to meet it?
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Apr 17, 2022 21:53
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aperfectcirclefan posted:I think DVD won because you didn't have to rewind the loving things. i think it depends on what you mean by cinema quality, because there are a lot of different types of film. i believe 4k surpasses the resolution some film stocks offer but is not the maximum resolution offered in movie theaters.  excited to get this tomorrow. i haven't seen robocop in a few years and i'm well overdue for a rewatch.
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Apr 17, 2022 21:58
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aperfectcirclefan posted:Is 4k at cinema quality or do we still need another generation or so to meet it? There might be some kind of 8k standard at some point to squeeze a few bucks out of videophiles but the benefit would be utterly insignificant.
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Apr 17, 2022 22:12
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And I know we're in the physical media thread, so it's presumed we're talking about playing discs, but if you stream online the "4K" option could look far worse than a regular 1080 blu ray anyway. The qualitative differences vary wildly depending on how you consume the content. The difference between DVD and Blu is way more perceptible than from Blu to 4K, in my experience. You've really gotta have high end kit and a large display/projection setup to really get your mileage out of 4K anyway.
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Apr 17, 2022 22:19
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Sniep posted:And I know we're in the physical media thread, so it's presumed we're talking about playing discs, but if you stream online the "4K" option could look far worse than a regular 1080 blu ray anyway. The qualitative differences vary wildly depending on how you consume the content. Yeah, streaming is leagues behind physical media quality. I’m not sure 4K streaming is even worth the price over HD. I’ve got a 65” OLED that I sit fairly close to but the HDR is still a much more noticeable improvement than the extra resolution of 4K.
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Apr 17, 2022 22:55
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Sniep posted:And I know we're in the physical media thread, so it's presumed we're talking about playing discs, but if you stream online the "4K" option could look far worse than a regular 1080 blu ray anyway. The qualitative differences vary wildly depending on how you consume the content. The resolution bump to 4k is mostly imperceptible, but where it shines is depth of color.
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Apr 17, 2022 23:42
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CPL593H posted:There's a really good breakdown of the history of the CED Videodisc, how it works, and why it failed from a guy called Technology Connections on youtube if you're interested in that stuff. It's in three parts and it's very in depth. That's a good series (it actually went to five parts). Corporations can be monumentally stupid.
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Apr 17, 2022 23:45
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Iron Crowned posted:The resolution bump to 4k is mostly imperceptible, but where it shines is depth of color. Good point. I am quick to dismiss the other video qualitiy elements that have improved in 4K and simplify it down to only the resolution, which agreed, isn't worth that much. I suppose I'll have to get set up properly with a viewing space that could do justice to those improvements one day and get really mad about all the 4K versions I opted to just get the blu of.
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Apr 17, 2022 23:48
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You can shoot something in 4K and still have it look like cheap garbage too.
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Apr 18, 2022 00:04
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aperfectcirclefan posted:I think DVD won because you didn't have to rewind the loving things. It’s hard to say but generally 4K gets used for big reissue/rep screenings so it’s more or less the size at which you can project onto a cinema screen and not have big obvious pixels everywhere. It’s still much “crisper” than say 35mm. (And many digital screenings of new releases are in 2k where you CAN see pixel lines on text and similar artifacts here and there.) Generally my impression is that 4K digital is like pointillism, 35mm is more like seeing the brushwork.
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Apr 18, 2022 00:13
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yeah, nothing I'll ever set up at home will feel like seeing Halloween III on a virtually perfect 35mm print terrible, wonderful, terrible movie but it looked fantastic
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Apr 18, 2022 00:39
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All the various video formats are just buckets for whatever mastering tech existed. Laserdisc was a benchmark because once it became more of an enthusiast format by the late-80s, it wasn't really acceptable to dump wrong aspect ratios or crappy transfers for the most part. DVD ended up just using mostly what was done for laserdiscs unless the studio had already prepped early 1080i masters meant for Japanese broadcast or the MUSE format (which really only Universal and Sony did anything with). Blu-ray continued the sin of repurposing transfers never meant to be seen in native HD, but only as downscaled SD for home video or broadcast. Finally, with UHD, there's a consistency because all the 4K restorations and remasters done for the Blu-ray era have paid off. And the shelf life tends to be amazing. The Red Shoes, The Ten Commandments, Dr. Strangelove, Vertigo, Lawrence of Arabia, Taxi Driver, Rear Window, and Blade Runner are all top-notch despite the masters being 12-15 years old. A master that old ten years ago would have been horrific (as seen by the initial Blu of Spartacus, taken from a circa-1999 1080p transfer).
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Apr 18, 2022 01:24
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Mister Kingdom posted:That's a good series (it actually went to five parts). Corporations can be monumentally stupid. Watching all five parts of that made me wonder what things would have been like if RCA didn't make very possible wrong choice and actually managed to VHS to market by a number of years. It probably still would have fallen prey to tape eventually because it was a recordable media but home video being available as early as CED Videodiscs could have been had they no bungled the whole thing might have changed the landscape quite a bit. I really encourage everyone who didn't see the Technology Connections videos about CED to watch them. It's a very fascinating story. Casimir Radon posted:You can shoot something in 4K and still have it look like cheap garbage too. 
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Apr 18, 2022 02:32
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CPL593H posted:Watching all five parts of that made me wonder what things would have been like if RCA didn't make very possible wrong choice and actually managed to VHS to market by a number of years. It probably still would have fallen prey to tape eventually because it was a recordable media but home video being available as early as CED Videodiscs could have been had they no bungled the whole thing might have changed the landscape quite a bit. I really encourage everyone who didn't see the Technology Connections videos about CED to watch them. It's a very fascinating story. I think the biggest challenge was that recording was really the killer app for home video. Sure, I think videodisc would have been successful, but unless they figured out how to get 2 hours on a side, videodisc still would have ran into the issue that every hour, you had to flip the disc (half hour for CAV laserdiscs), and if a movie went above 2 hours, you had to change the sides. VHS could easily handle most films - it's only around the 2.5 hour mark where a second tape becomes necessary (I know it's more than that, but that is around the time you switch to two tapes). But recording - that's the game changer. Want to watch M*A*S*H, but Billy has his recital tonight? You can record it and never miss it!
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Apr 18, 2022 04:16
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Unrelated to all that but has anyone here ever ordered from Eureka! Video's website. Their billing thing seems really sketchy.
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Apr 18, 2022 04:19
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CPL593H posted:Unrelated to all that but has anyone here ever ordered from Eureka! Video's website. Their billing thing seems really sketchy. I've got 40 Eureka releases (with more on the way) and nearly all were ordered from them directly. Never had any issues.
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Apr 18, 2022 04:26
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Netflix movies too.
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Apr 18, 2022 04:28
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FancyMike posted:I've got 40 Eureka releases (with more on the way) and nearly all were ordered from them directly. Never had any issues. Thanks. I usually avoid anything that doesn't take paypal in general and their particular payment thing looked off to me and I googled it and found vague complaints about it.
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Apr 18, 2022 04:33
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DVD also won because the studios abandoned the rental window agreement they had with video stores and VHS.
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Apr 18, 2022 05:05
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CPL593H posted:Unrelated to all that but has anyone here ever ordered from Eureka! Video's website. Their billing thing seems really sketchy. I've ordered from Eureka before, never had issues and in fact they've been consistently the fastest to ship things to me. Arrow UK always took at least 2 weeks to ship for me and another week or two just to get to my door step while charging a lot for shipping, while Eureka has shipped within a few days and the package arrived a few days later and all on free shipping.
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Apr 18, 2022 07:35
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Gripweed posted:SRS does super small batch VHS releases of interesting independent Japanese movies and zero-budget garbage Canadian horror movies Pffft, where's your Betamax? Also, just lol if you're not rocking this sweet-rear end Betamax shirt https://www.lastexittonowhere.com/catalogue/watch-whatever-whenever_15731/
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Apr 18, 2022 07:59
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CPL593H posted:Thanks. I usually avoid anything that doesn't take paypal in general and their particular payment thing looked off to me and I googled it and found vague complaints about it. I ordered from them two weeks ago and was fine but lall their emails went to my spam folder so heads up
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Apr 18, 2022 11:29
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Davros1 posted:DVD also won because the studios abandoned the rental window agreement they had with video stores and VHS. DVD also hit at the right time. TVs were getting better, and so could more easily take advantage of the better sound and video quality DVDs offered. As you mentioned too, DVDs being out months before the VHS was priced-to-own really helped. Not only that, but bonus features - what would you rather buy, the tape with no bonus features, or the DVD packed to the gills with bonus features like interactive menus, digital audio, and chapter select!
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Apr 18, 2022 13:20
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Can't forget the PS2's role in getting a DVD player into homes.
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Apr 18, 2022 13:26
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Cloks posted:Can't forget the PS2's role in getting a DVD player into homes. If the xbox 360 had been able to play HD-DVDs, that would've beaten bluray in the American market. There would've been a weird split where America was all in on HD-DVDs and Japan was all in on blurays. Everyone in this thread would have a big HD-DVD collection and import the nicer Japanese bluray releases of favorite movies.
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Apr 18, 2022 13:38
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Cemetry Gator posted:DVD also hit at the right time. TVs were getting better, and so could more easily take advantage of the better sound and video quality DVDs offered. As you mentioned too, DVDs being out months before the VHS was priced-to-own really helped. Not only that, but bonus features - what would you rather buy, the tape with no bonus features, or the DVD packed to the gills with bonus features like interactive menus, digital audio, and chapter select! TVs were also getting bigger. You could get away with the VHS resolution in the 80's if you're rocking 12" TV, by the end of the 90's when they're 2X or 3X the size, you can't get away with VHS resolution.
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Apr 18, 2022 13:41
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Gripweed posted:If the xbox 360 had been able to play HD-DVDs, that would've beaten bluray in the American market. There would've been a weird split where America was all in on HD-DVDs and Japan was all in on blurays. Everyone in this thread would have a big HD-DVD collection and import the nicer Japanese bluray releases of favorite movies. I had an HD-DVD USB drive from an Xbox 360 for a while, and even ripped a handful of discs I snagged super cheap. Between the 30GB max capacity’s effect on bitrate and the format leaning hard into VC-1, it wasn’t competitive from a quality standpoint. The better format won.
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Apr 18, 2022 13:57
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