Video Asylum

Posted by John C. - Aussie (i) on December 06, 2000 at 13:29:38:

In Reply to: S-VHS quality posted by BobIsBob on December 06, 2000 at 12:50:37:

... if the original tape is recorded with an S-VHS recorder with the video signal split upon recording. So forget about any improvement to rental tapes by using s-video connection. S-video does not give dramatic improvement over composite. You have to go to component to get stunning results.

Rental tapes are mass produced and of inferior quality. I can record better quality direct off air or satellite and do so a lot to time shift.

We have two S-VHS recorders but I rarely bother to use S-VHS tape. It is more expensive and the end result is not necessarily better. However those recorders (Panasonic - National) do have more sophisticated circuitry and make better quality tapes than some cheaper machines.

Bear in mind with all of the above that we use the PAL system here and that is 625 line & does give better colour rendering than NTSC. Recorders do little better than 400+ lines but we find it very viewable on our projection system with a 112 inch screen, frequently superior to NTSC laserdiscs but not to the best NTSC DVDs. Like all software however, not all DVDs are great either. Ain't life a bum sometimes??

John