Tape Trail

Posted by ggoat!!! on May 09, 2007 at 13:35:32

In Reply to: There is another option... posted by shoeihell@yahoo.com on May 9, 2007 at 12:44:20:

The soundtrack on a well-recorded original VHS is in fact MUCH better than most factory produced DVD movies in that most DVD soundtracks are compressed; audible artifacts can easily be heard on nearly any Dolby Digital DVD, particularly Dolby Digital 2.0. I MUCH prefer the full analog VHS soundtracks on good tapes. I copy quite a bit of music from concert DVD's and VHS tapes to minidisc (Type-R) and DVD's compressed tracks (when linear PCM is not available) sound horrible when re-compressed by minidisc's ATRAC circuitry. The VHS soundtracks sound indistinguishable from the source.

BTW...regular VHS and S-VHS machines' audio quality should be very similar. The FM format of these machines is not very "picky" regarding absolute alignment and such due to the physics of the way it records sound. ANY good high end VHS or S-VHS machine with good quiet electronics (harder to find than it sounds) should yield amazing audio quality, even with cheaper tapes. As a matter of fact, this was all the rage in about 1985-1986; Harmon/Kardon even called their VHS decks "Audio/Video Cassette Recorders" touting their audio capabilities. This fad didn't last. (It was also the "rage" in about 1991 with 8mm/Hi-8 cassettes being able to store upwards of 24 hours or something ridiculous like that of digital audio; this never caught on either).

• Re: There is another option... - shoeihell@yahoo.com 19:53:30 05/09/07 (0)
• Re: There is another option... - Braxus 19:50:08 05/09/07 (1)
  • Re: There is another option... - shoeihell@yahoo.com 20:54:45 05/09/07 (0)

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