Tapeheads and the Quiet Return of VHS

Hugh Pickens writes "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.'"

Comments

Content, not the Technology

[afabbro]

I have no desire to "go back to VHS" or even to own any VHS tapes. But as the article points out, there are several good movies that have not been released on DVD.

In those cases, I'd much rather have someone's mp4 conversion off piratebay than a fresh VHS tape because VHS tapes do not last the way digital files do.

Same is true for a number of good movies and TV series that were never released on VHS. You want to watch the original Batman '66? Be prepared for some TV Land logos in your mp4s.

The only reason every video ever made is not available on demand is idiotic IP laws and greed. That is what we all want, not this piecemeal idiocy.

On the other hand, it killed community cinephilia

[CRCulver]

While home video was certainly a net gain in availability of obscure films nationwide/worldwide, at a local level it destroyed many local cinemas who ran classic art films. It used to be that you could go to a screening of, say, an Ingmar Bergman film from several years prior, meet other cinephiles in your neighbourhood, and walk out of the cinema having passionate discussions with your peers about what you just saw.

Sure, nowadays you can torrent the film or get it from Netflix, and then go on IMDB or Flixster to post a review or get into a masturbatory flame war with anonymous people who can't spell, but that in-real-life community aspect is gone except in a very few places.

LOL!

[Anonymous Coward]

grainy aesthetic qualities of magnetic tape

Grainy? Has this moron ever SEEN a video off VHS? How about blurry with messed up tint? How about seeing annoying streaks across the screen from where the tape has worn?
 
I can see the motive behind records and audio tapes (not my thing), but this is RETARDED.

Re:LOL!

[epyT-R]

I'd group the vinyl and tape people in with the vhs heads.. it's all nostalgia and or generational insecurity, with the new converts just trying to differentiate themselves socially with their peers. obviously it's legitimate to go to those older formats when the recording doesn't exist on the newer ones (or it's a bad transfer), but otherwise it's pure snobbery. properly done digital is superior to all those formats.

Re:LOL!

[EdIII]

properly done digital is superior to all those formats

That is very rare. In many ways I view the quality of DVDs and Blurays as equivalent to that of VHS tapes. It's Apples and Oranges really. With VHS you had degradation and quality issues inherent to the format. With digital, which is usually done poorly, even on high end Blurays, you have the "waterfall effect" where the blocks become noticeable in high speed movement in the scene, most noticeably on water falls.

If we had a nearly loss less compression algorithm, or better methods of dealing with such artifacts that would be nice, but for now it is not like digital is perfect fidelity.

If I had to choose I would go with my 300 pound Pioneer LaserDisc player. It was expensive as hell, and I did not have to flip the discs. The quality though was just shy of DVD and still analog video. That meant no artifacts and no degradation (well a heck of lot less without laser rot). It was a nicer looking picture to me.

Not to mention the audio was in many cases digital and the Elite players had optical connectors to your stereo system.

I know it may sound crazy, but it really pisses me off when I see a $20+ Bluray title, with super high resolution compared to the LD, and yet still have bullshit encoding artifacts in high speed motion scenes. LD did not have that.

One of the many reasons why I won't spend a dime on Bluray.

LD is too much of a pain in the ass though, not to mention new titles are not exactly being sold either. Never did see a burner or blank ones around either.....

Re:LOL!

[Hatta]

Vinyl for home listening as it has superior sound quality

I suspect you've been blasted on this already, but this is absolutely false. Vinyl has a higher noise floor and the sampling rate of digital audio is above the limit of human perception. If you're perceiving a difference, it's because of the mastering of the recordings. That or the placebo effect.

Edited for clarity

[billcopc]

$HIPSTERS and the $MEANINGLESS_ADJECTIVE return of $OBSOLETE_KITSCH

I am not a VHS fanatic. Even in the 80's, I hated the format. VHS tapes are/were made to the cheapest possible materials, so they wore out very easily and were highly susceptible to heat warping. Much like audio tapes, the sound tends to warble and even distort on overly bright video frames... such a kludgey format!

I do think we need to preserve the content of these tapes, but not the medium itself. I've been an all-streaming guy for 8-9 years and have no desire to go backward.

Re:On the other hand, it killed community cinephil

[penguinchris]

That's not what he's talking about. Those people who don't know how to behave are not going to Ingmar Bergman films or even English-language arthouse/indie films, so the experience is only ever positive if you find a place showing such films - because for people who really like movies, the theater experience (including the film experience, which can't practically be replicated at home) is a big part of the enjoyment.

There are still such places - theaters that show classic films, new foreign films, and indie and art films. The Dryden Theater at the George Eastman House in Rochester NY (where I went to university) is my favorite, though I don't live there anymore. Yeah you can get it all on DVD, but it's still worth going if you're into movies - and if you're not into movies, you're not watching those kinds of films anyway.

WTF? WHY?

[Lumpy]

VHS is inferior in EVERY WAY to DVD. From the format it's self, you need at LEAST SVHS to get even 1/2 way to DVD. to the durability to the workflow for editing and creating a movie on tape.

Only complete morons would be "gong back" to VHS. I'm glad it's gone, dead, buried. Hell I'm happy that DV, HDV, Umatic, and Beta are dead.

Tape sucks, After working with Tape for 20+ years... I am glad it is dead.

Head alignment causing the camera to not record correctly, crap tape clogging heads, head maintenance, belt replacement, pinch roller replacement, oh god no.

Plus let's look at resolution. Regular VHS records and plays back 320X240 resolution MAX. SVHS doubled that. It's why all recordings looked smeared compared to the live broadcast. By the end of it's life Mass produced VHS was a lot better but still nothing like even a crappy made DVD. A SuperBit DVD will fake someone into believing they are watching a BluRay.

Shelf life of Tape is horrid, I have had to spend days trying to figure out how to get a tape to play one last time after sitting in a controlled vault for 12 years. Many tapes would adhere to themselves.

I can see an advantage with records, I can see an advantage with some other older stuff, but VHS was crap from day 1. It wasn't even the better format from day 1.