'A visit from the goon squad' by Jennifer Egan

[Steve Smith]

Good tape - not cassette, not 8 track cartridges - can be very high fidelity.

Good tape is the master for most of the records ever made.

Plate Voltage

Or Anode Voltage as you would be known here!


Steve.

[tomalophicon]

Are you serious? The only time VCR was good was when the machine was brand new and so was the tape. It was pretty steep downward slope from there!

Hoffy, it could be my receiver is a 20 dollar job, but still, it just seems mushy and pixelated.

[MDR]

Unknown to many but a VHS Tape has more image information than a DVD, DVD only looks sharper because it has a much higher contrast.
But I agree VHS was the worst possible choice as a Videoformat at least compared to other choices at the time.
Digital TV especially HD is nothing but a marketing gag not because it couldn't be better, but because the TV Station are compressing the life out of it best example BBC and Discovery Channel that don't allow documentaries filmed with 16mm simple because their compression algorithm can't deal with Filmgrain (cheapest compression worst quality).
Dominik

[Edward_S]

Hmmmm, back in my younger days I used to record club/garage bands with a 4 head VCR through a 16 channel mixing board and still to this very day the sound quality is better than digital.

I have my VCR wired up so that I get the TV sound via the hi-fi system, and it's really not possible to tell the difference between the VCR and CDs. The VCR sound quality is surprisingly good. Unfortunately, the analogue signal is being switched off in the London area next year so I'll have to get used to short wide people with plastic faces (at least that's what all the digital TVs seem to look like).

[Rick A]

Tucked neatly in an undisclosed attic, lays a complete BETAMAX system, wishing someone, anyone, would bring it back out into the light of day so it may once again reveal its superiority to other mediums. Wait, I think it's over there next to the Quadraphonic HI-FI gear sweetie, now if some of these other POS items that we've kept past usefulness weren't blocking it, I could drag it out. Hmm... wonder if it still works---HONEY--DO WE HAVE ANY TAPES FOR THIS THING???