"Best" VHS quality?

[BitFaced]

I know this sounds stupid to ask on a forum that's all about video quality but, for some things I can only watch on VHS, should I bother getting anything better than a standard Composite connection directly to a HD TV or could/should I improve it for the "best" out of a VHS player by getting one with S-Video/Component and/or a scaler? And in terms of region compatibilty, I've heard there are some PAL machines that can play NTSC as PAL 60, though that might not come through on the HD TV. Also, in terms of copying (copy protected) VHS, is it the same deal?

[nissling]

You could use an external TBC. There are professional equipment from the late 90s or early 00s that are very useful in these scenarios yet affordable by now. Look up the Leitch DPS series, they're really nice and will certainly show improvements even on very basic setups.

VHS look the best on a CRT but if you have a somewhat decent deinterlacer and scaler in your set and don't crank up sharpness like a maniac you're not losing too much using a modern display.

[OdiousTrident]

It depends on the quality and age of the tapes.

HD TV's (LCD included) tend to saturate dark colors and create what I would call a lack of visual depth for lower quality VHS. CRT or scaler would certainly help but it depends on how picky you are. It doesn't bother many reasonable people.

Most rare tapes are lower in quality across the board (whatever genres you're into).

[MintyTheCat]

I agree, some things look a lot better on VHS using a decent CRT.

I have many Horror VHS tapes still.

[Obiwanshinobi]

[cicada88]

From what I've read in the past, your best bet are JVC and Panasonic (also some Mitsubishi models) prosumer style machines with TBC
VHS is finicky in that some machines deal with certain tapes better than others. I.e. some playback tapes that they recorded great, but other machines won't playback those same tapes to the same quality.

On top of that, a lot of of the really high end machines are prone to wear out or need extensive maintenance because they've been used as a workhorse, whereas there are certain machines that lack a bit of picture quality but are more bombproof in their reliability.

If you do any major digging into these machines it will most likely lead you to digitization of your RAREZ. By far the easiest method is one of the good JVC VHS to DVD drives with a built in hard drive. It won't get you the absolute best quality, but buying all the equipment, capture interface for your computer, and software is a HUGE time sink. It lets you do some quick editing and back your tapes up from decay.

If this is an interacting with outdated media fetish thing, you are going to need to feed this into a high end CRT broadcast monitor. It will look pretty damn good in a VHS kind of way. Or you could go into some video processor and out to a Plasma and it might be decent.

[beatsgo]

If you do any major digging into these machines it will most likely lead you to digitization of your RAREZ. By far the easiest method is one of the good JVC VHS to DVD drives with a built in hard drive. It won't get you the absolute best quality, but buying all the equipment, capture interface for your computer, and software is a HUGE time sink. It lets you do some quick editing and back your tapes up from decay.

Somewhat off topic (and even "wrong subforum"), but I wonder how the XCapture-USB3 will handle video from VCRs since I want to transfer my family VHS into digital formats.

[ELabit]

Get a JVC S-VHS player with TBC and use a good quality CRT. I use XM29 and this is probably about as high of a quality set up you can get and VHS still doesn't look as good as LD though

[Fudoh]

From a practical point of view: a solid JVC s-video deck is nice.

If you want even better quality (I compared a dozen player and processing solutions to capture a few hundred tapes between 2005 and 2009), get a Sony SVO player. These are pro decks, but not really expensive. As a comb filter use a Pioneer DVR deck. You can use the Pioneer deck for capture or you output in component or RGB from there to any monitor.

It's absolutely amazing how clean the SVO decks looks compared to any of the much more expensive consumer decks, no matter if you choose Sony, Panasonic or JVC. The Pioneer DVR decks got the best comb filter out there.

[BitFaced]

Well I've found that SVO VHS seem to all be USA-based (the ones on eBay, at least) and found some JVC S-VHS that seem to be UK-based:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JVC-HR-J680-V ... 21037f914e
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/JVC-HR-V617EK ... 3d03429ce9

So will I get good quality with one of these and a scaler?

[Fudoh]

If you go with a JVC you need a real s-vhs deck, so you utilize its comb filter. Look for a unit like the S7500.

The Sony SVO-1500P (that's the unit I got) isn't this rare. In my test recordings it easily beat every JVC deck. I had a S9500.
That's the last working 1500P sold here on ebay: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Sony-SVO-1500-P- ... 4882b7dd86

If you don't need your setup tomorrow, have a little patience and see what the market has to offer.

[MX7]

I ummed and ahhed about chucking my really nice 32" CRT but I A/B'd a load of tapes on my nice Panasonic VCR on both CRT and LED and the difference in output was minimal, surprisingly so. I made a preset on the LCD, and the CRT went in the bin.

I swore I'd never get in to collecting videos but it's happened now. Fuck.

[cicada88]

I ummed and ahhed about chucking my really nice 32" CRT but I A/B'd a load of tapes on my nice Panasonic VCR on both CRT and LED and the difference in output was minimal, surprisingly so. I made a preset on the LCD, and the CRT went in the bin.

I swore I'd never get in to collecting videos but it's happened now. Fuck.

Toss really nice 32" CRT? Begin collecting VHS Tapes? You're doing it backwards