DVD will doubtless really take off as a successor to VHS when top-brand recorders dip below £100. Then I think you'll see tape use plummet, as users realise that a disc costs half that of a tape and gives higher quality.
It's a shame there seems to be no attempt to try and market D-VHS to the UK or Europe.
It's a great thought - MPEG2 signals recorded onto VHS tape - just think how much MPEG2 data you could fit onto an E-180 - probably 96hours' worth? Remember that the head-tape speed would/could be much slower than conventional VHS as the signals will take up so much less space.
It would be a great thing to make important recordings to as a MASTER, and then transfer to DVD at a later time - so if you have a duff blank DVD-R / DVD+R, you haven't lost your chance to record it.
Obviously, if you have a PVR you have that advantage aswell, but for serious enthusiasts D-VHS would still be a much more preferable option.
I personally would like to see a machine which is a combined DTT tuner, D-VHS deck and DVD burner, which would use a digital content management system to log what has been recorded to the D-VHS (using tape numbers, and the like), with a function to read data off-tape and burn onto DVD - high-speed transfer would be possible because spinning the head drum at the usual 50 Hz would be far faster than its real-time playback speed.
Then you'd keep the D-VHS tapes as the masters and use DVD for day-to-day playback or distributing copies to people.
I'd like them to add menus to videos saying what the show is and how much time it takes.And at the bottom of the screen it would say 2H0M FREE or something.And i'd like to see not DVD quality on videos but TV quality not depending on your ariel.Maybe they could change them into half a day discs instead of videos and be able to record 12 hours on the disc. BTW,what are DVD recorders like?
It is a pity about DVHS - I read up on it not that long ago and I thought what a good idea it was - as I prefer working with tape than disc. Although I remember a lot of people saying if the tape got slightly damaged it would affect the picture more than damage on analogue VHS.
Personally I'm trying to get hold of a SVHS machine as I think it's a good enough compromise between VHS and DVD.
Proper Stereo Hi-fi VCRs can kick out a pretty decent sound. MY VCR is S-VHS and Hi-Fi Stereo and as an overall package it's really good. I see no need to pay for a DVD recorder yet.
I have loads of video tapes and will still require a video recorder for some time yet - my car is only about 3 years old yet it only has an audio cassette player (much to my annoyance really) but if audio cassettes are still kicking about then VHS will for some time I think.
As others have said, the true test will be when DVD recorders are common place.
I'll not want to convert my video though - I've had videos chew up yet I've managed to repair them and save most of the contents - but CDs and DVDs have a habit of failing with no notice and no way of putting them right - all those old idents and clips lost for good....
What's the picture quality of DVD recorders like these days?
I saw one of the original ones (Phillips) 2-3 years ago, and anything other than the highest session (1hr record time) was frankly sub-VHS (even though they claimed otherwise) - also the compression artifects were quite noticeable - ie. taking something already MPEG encoded/decoded from DSAT then encoding it again onto the DVD, blocks of bright colours (reds) were particularly poor.
It's a shame there seems to be no attempt to try and market D-VHS to the UK or Europe.
Err - they did ... Philips, Thomson and JVC all had machines on sale in the UK about 5 years ago. They were great (one model even had RGB in and out on SCARTs for quality recording of DTV) - but very expensive (£700-1000) and whilst they offered great recording times, and decent quality, they still suffered by being tape based and linear.
At the time DVD was gathering speed - and the DVHS units looked a bit clunky and dated in comparison - and there were no rental films on the format (though they'd play normal VHS stuff in the normal rubbish VHS quality)
Now we have DVD recorders - albeit with far more limited capacity - I think the format is pretty much dead - apart from HDTV regions where it may have a few more years before BluRay and the like kill it off.
It is a niche product in the US and Japan - and the decks are much cheaper - because until recently it was the only format capable of recording HDTV off-air (and losslessly to boot) at a reasonable price. There are also HDTV encrypted DVHS tapes (called D-Theater) of some feature films available - and are amazing quality.
Sadly the decks aren't that reliable - they suffer from all the problems of VHS - but when you get a head clog on DVHS you get far worse problems than just a snowy picture and some fuzzy sound for a few seconds.
Sadly its time has been and gone. In Japan they can now buy BluRay recorders which will store 25Gb on a single layer (48ish on a dual layer) disc - which is competitive with DVHS - and random access, compact etc.
Sadly its time has been and gone. In Japan they can now buy BluRay recorders which will store 25Gb on a single layer (48ish on a dual layer) disc - which is competitive with DVHS - and random access, compact etc.