Slashdot Mirror
Philips VCR Records MPEG On (D-)VHS tape
wfberg writes: "This Philips VCR
records and reads normal VHS tapes, but also records MPEG 2 video digitally on tape. You need 'special' tape for this though (presumably to boost philips tape sales). It sports digital-input and since it's RW and digital, this should piss off the DVD people. Since Philips owns a stake in TiVo, maybe TiVos will make tape-backups in the future? ;-)" The flip-down edit panel looks cool. I wonder how hard it would be to get FireWire out as well as in ...
violence was the answer for the individuals who disliked Martin Luther King jr.s and Mohatmas Ghandi.
I don't think DVHS is meant for standard movie distribution. As some other people have said, DVHS has been out for quite some time, but I haven't yet seen a single movie sold commercially on DVHS.
The reason: I think the movie industry is trying to set up DVHS as The Poor Man's DVD. They can use this standard to get away with never releasing commercial DVD recorders (not DVD-RAM drives here; I'm talking about set-top stuff) by claiming that you can record on these tapes now. It keeps DVD squarely in the hands of the rich corporations. Neat trick, that.
DVHS will end up working in the markets of the home video-camera owner, or the person who tapes TV shows. It will also likely thrive in the anime fansubbing community once it starts to catch on there, because of the very high quality (note that, once again, it also makes fansubbers easier for the ingrate industry to track down and pounce on).
But is this meant for commercial distribution? Very doubtful. As I said, this seems more likely to become the MPAA's proposed substitute for releasing recordable DVD than anything else.
The main idea I've had so far is to create "brand recognition" a la Underwriters Laboratories. My working name is the Open Media Initiative.
The Open Media Initiative (OMI) would exist to analyze and certify devices and software as being free of copy protection and/or copy tracking measures. If you see an OMI logo on a product, you will know that product does not contain rubbish like CSS, Macrovision, "license authentication" systems (a la Quake 3 Arena or Half-Life), etc. By building brand/logo awareness of OMI and what OMI's goals do for the customer, it is my hope that consumers will stay away from non-OMI approved products, making them unviable in the marketplace. (Yeah, I know, a Libertarian pipe dream, but I think it's worth exploring further.)
Where the OMI's funding would come from is unclear. Manufacturers certainly wouldn't want to pay for licensing the trademarked OMI logo (at least not initially), and in fact it would probably be a poor idea for manufacturers to pay for it, as that kind of backwards leverage could easily cause OMI to become another TRUSTe.
Thoughts, anyone?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
The CPTWG (Copy Protection Technical Working Group) is pushing very hard to have copy protection measures incorporated into IEEE 1394 (FireWire) devices. The idea is to prevent "unauthorized" use of digital content, no matter where you tap into the chain.
Intel has put forward a proposal for incorporating copy protection measures into IEEE 1394. There's also an organization pushing Digital Transmission Content Protection which, if Hollywood gets its way, will be incorporated into your new digital televisions by the time NTSC signals go dark in 2006.
Anyone wanna help me try to stop this garbage?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
JVC Has had a D-VHS deck out forever, and my local tower even carries the 5-hour tapes for it.
:)
JVC's was integrated into an MPEG2 sat. reciever, which was the only way to get an MPEG2 signal at the time
it's quite a cool unit.
www.dishnetwork.com has info.
-Scott
Please send all UCE to scally@devolution.com so I can f
Oh my goodness.. a good-quality rerecordable tape system?? That's AWESOME. It'll NEVER last.
Because now we get to watch the MPAA and all the television companies bitch like hell and throw money at congress until this thing here goes the way of the DAT tape.
Well, there seems to be an unwritten rule that wealthy corporations do not attempt to stop other wealthy corporations from doing things they'd normally scream bloody murder about, so Phillips may get away with it. Phillips seems to have gotten away with the computerless CDR-copier thing, anyway, and i doubt much of anyone is using that for anything but piracy. I dunno. let's see.
I saw no reference in the specs to MPEG-2. maybe i missed something? It says it uses MPEG-1 for the audio.. which layer? 3? Or would that be too much encoding time? can it _play_ mp3/mp2 even if it can't record?
I'm drooling thinking about any layer MPEG on a tape. VHS sound is so awful. ARRGH i wish these specs were more specific.
Hmm.. wonder how it handles the rewinds? better than DVD, you'd think?
I'm just sitting here thinking about how unbelievably cool it would be to watch a tracking error (or even better forcably speeding up, slowing down, or running backward the drive) on an MPEG-based tape. MPEG artifacts are normally interesting, but watching it attempt to read MPEG and just get random bits sloshing back and forth.. TRIPPY. My pupils are dilating just thinking about it.
-mcc-baka
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
That doesn't work on Disney DVDs. They lock out the controls.
It's only for sale in Europe, and it's being marketed as a business 'security' solution...
NOT as a home appliance, and surely not a recordable DVD replacement.
John
Well, I think you're on the right track. But there is one problem with that: hard drives crash!
I don't think something like what you are describing ("hard drives on a centralized server") would be viable until hard drives get rid of their last moving parts... I mean, sure, you have your various RAID solutions, etc, but you still have to pay to keep replacing the drives, and that gets pricey, especially for hobbyists who can't afford a data center to store their music and movies.
The good thing about these digial tapes is that besides being cheap, (well, cheaper than, say, writable DVDs or a RAID array) you don't see the same degredation you do with conventional analog recordings. That said, I do think the technology has some good uses and shouldn't be disregarded as backward and ancient, as VHS probably should be. =)
Regarding DVD; personally, I like the format, I just wish it was free of the bureaucracy and greed that makes it a problem for some... but hey, that's probably more of a societal issue, anyway, and that is a whole different thread...
Apparently, according to the specs page, it's MPEG 1, not MPEG 2... hardly the same quality compression as MPEG 2.
-- "Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything." -Joseph Stalin
Beta died; so will this. It's THAT different..
Mike Roberto (roberto@soul.apk.net) -GAIM: MicroBerto
Berto
I sure hope no one thinks Beta died just because it didn't have enough dirty movies for its format.
A much better and more accurate rundown of Beta's rise and fall is available here.
The "urban myths" link you pointed has got to be wrong. Why would any movie company have to approach JVC or Sony to get permission to release movies on VHS or Betamax? JVC's and Sony's licensing schemes don't work like that! You need a license to manufacture VCRs or tapes for their format, not to release movies! I could pick up a few spanking new DVHS decks and a truckload of blank tapes and start cranking out my own DVHS porno movies and I certainly don't need Philips's or JVC's permission to do so.
One thing the link may be right about is the picture quality differences between the formats and the different tape lengths. But it conveniently leaves out an important detail...
The standard recording speed on VHS is SP and runs at 3.33cm/s. The standard recording speed on Beta is BII and runs at only 2cm/s. The picture quality is the same, yes, but Beta is able to record the same picture quality with less tape!
And about the tape lengths... A VHS T-120 is two hours long on SP, but while Beta L-750 tapes advertised only 90 minutes recording time on the BI speed, remember that BII is the standard, which doubles the tape length to three hours. Which is the "inferior technology" with the "shorter tape length" now??
The longest tape length for VHS available during the '80s (when the two formats were sparring) was a T-160, which gives 2 hours and 40 minutes. The longest Beta tape was an L-830, which gave 3 hours and 20 minutes.
Of course, this was only good for prerecorded tapes. If you wanted to squeeze as much material on a tape as possible, you could switch a VHS machine to EP and record 6 hours (T-120) or 8 hours (T-160). But a Beta could only drop down to BIII and get 4.5 hours (L-750) or 5 hours (L-830).
This makes me wonder why Beta used the same 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 ratios for tape speeds as VHS did. It would have made more sense to use 1:1, 1:2, and 1:4. With the slowest tape speed four times slower than the fastest, it would be able to fit 6 hours on an L-750 and 6 hours and 40 minutes on an L-830. Although the longest Beta tape length still wouldn't beaten the longest VHS tape length, it would have at least stood a better chance, due to the "standard" tape lengths (T-120 and L-750) being much more prevalent.
It's worth noting, as long as anyone is still reading this long-winded discussion about tape lengths, that in order to fit more tape into a cassette once the reels are full, the tape must be made thinner. The "original" VHS tapes were T-120s like we have today, and the tape was made thinner to make a T-160. The tape thickness of an L-750 is the same as that of a T-160, and considering that thinner tape is more prone to stretching, crinkling, and breaking, one can see that Beta tapes really couldn't get much longer. An L-1000 Beta tape (4 hours on BII, max. 6 hours on BIII to match a T-120) has finally been invented and can be bought from Absolute Beta, but it's only used by hobbyists.
Also, in case anyone cares, here's the deal with why that Beta machine in your closet or attic only does BII and BIII but not BI: Sony doesn't want you to record on BI because that think that will make the tapes look too short. Originally, BI was the standard, but when RCA and JVC rolled out VHS's LP and EP speeds in the late '70s, Sony knew they'd have to do something. Remember that video cassettes were really expensive then. So, in 1979, Sony decided that BII was the new standard and that all commercial Beta videos should be recorded in that speed. BI recording capability was discontinued. It was later reintroduced in a slightly evolved as "BIs" form on the higher-end SuperBeta machines in starting in 1986, and later in a further-evolved form called BI-SHB (Super Hi-Band) so as to appeal to power users. The only real difference was that its pre-emphasis/de-emphasis curve now matched that of BII and BIII.
Anyway, that was pretty long-winded, wasn't it? But this discussion of tape speeds and like always fascinates me.
Anyway, I'm afraid I don't have any hard proof about the picture quality except my word and everyone else's. However, I can say that given the business with the "standard" tape speed for each format (SP (1:1) and BII (1:2)), try seeing if material recorded in LP (1:2) matches BII (1:2). I've tried, and I can say that it definitely isn't as good. As for BI/BIs/BI-SHB (1:1) vs. SP (1:1), I can say that I was able to copy a segment of a DVD to my Beta machine in BIs, and picture quality looked almost as good as that of the original disc! Using BII (which we have established is practically equal to VHS's SP), the picture looked a little grainy and colour reproduction wasn't as faithful. Well, then, I guess I know what the outcome of a BIs vs. SP comparison would be. I'll have to try a real DVD to VHS SP copy sometime, of course...
Well, that's quite a lot I've written. I thank you if you're still reading. And if you were one of ones who bought VHS in the '80s and sneered at your Beta-using friends, don't worry. Even if you disagree with all that I've written, there's no need to defend VHS's honour. It won the format wars! That's all I have to say about that! (I was a VHS user in the '80s who sneered at Beta users, but in 1990 I got a Beta machine at a garage sale, and I got converted. Rather bad timing though, eh?)
I don't know if I want to post all this, but I might as well since I've taken the time to write it...
Some may find this article interesting... JVC announced a copy protection scheme for D-VHS, presumably similar to DVD (Anyone know more details ?). An excerpt...
WAYNE, N.J., April 10 /PRNewswire/ -- Victor Company of Japan, Ltd. (JVC) has developed a new copyright protection system for prerecorded D-VHS content as well as in-home analog and digital recording. The superior copyright protection feature will be included within the D-VHS standard. This new standard makes it possible to develop and produce prerecorded HD (High Definition) video content as well as add momentum to the development of D-VHS hardware products.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.