45worlds Forum - View Single Post

Latest Posts » DVD & Blu-ray » View Topic

View Single Post

Topic: VHS Tapes

14th Jul 2015, 12:56 PM
	Magic Marmalade If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3735 Points Moderator	My VHS recorder plays through my Sony DVD/HDD recorder to a 42" screen, and this upscales, so maybe it is taking care of a lot of it... On my old 26" screen, HD was a pretty pointless concept, as the screen was not large enough to show a difference, (and I wasn't sitting with my nose on the screen!), but the larger screen begins to reveal any shortcomings (Which is why we have Blu-Ray, essentially), and a few of my DVDs have shown themselves to have been not recorded to the disc with any great detail (Low pixel density), which begin to dissolve at this scale, with blocky edges, and washed out colours, even after the upscale.. ... but a lot of the VHS, although softer edges even on a smaller screen, doesn't show any new shortcomings when I played them on the bigger screen, and just look the same, only bigger. I suppose if you want the hyper-realism of Blu-Ray quality, then you may still be disappointed, but the VHS is very watchable at this scale, whereas those of my DVDs that have suffered through the jump begin to be a bit of a struggle to watch, the blockiness, and in particular, the tracking of motion is jarring. I'm not sure if you're up-scaler up-scales to 4K, or approximate, but I'd say the VHS will look OK... tracking motion not an issue either. One example where the VHS wins over the DVD at this level is the Star Wars trilogy (I've the silver and black boxes on both formats), and the VHS actually suits the feel of the film better (so more nostalgia reasons than technical ones!)... the original film looks the way it used to... and in my opinion: ought to.