Does anyone remember VHS HIFI ?

[Blumlein 88]

Yes, the recording length made VHS a better option for consumers, even if the quality wasn’t as good as beta, but the main reason VHS won was that the porn industry standardized on it - this is no joke and really had a major impact on the VHS versus Beta wars. The jump from 8mm to VHS really caused that industries growth explosion in the 1980s.

Jack Horner in Boogie Nights was all against videotape. The Colonel wanted to get out in front of it.

My favorite Burt Reynolds role. His agent signed him up for it and Reynolds once he read the script he fired his agent and sued to try and get out of it. Seems Reynolds was just born to portray a sleezy porn producer. Hahaha!!! He was nominated for an Oscar (the only nomination he ever had).

 

[Mart68]

I managed a AV store in the mid 80's and we had ~400 VHS movies for rental and VHS machines too. We never even bothered with stocking beta rentals. It really was a dud at the time for us.

Yes our shop had 3 racks of VHS for rental and only one of Betamax - and the Betamax rack vanished after less than a year. No point getting Beta if you wanted to rent films.

Being able to go down the off-licence and get a fairly recent film to watch was, at the time, the best thing ever.

 

[Doodski]

Yes our shop had 3 racks of VHS for rental and only one of Betamax - and the Betamax rack vanished after less than a year. No point getting Beta if you wanted to rent films.

Being able to go down the off-licence and get a fairly recent film to watch was, at the time, the best thing ever.

We where ordering in ~6+ of each popular movie because people wanted to rent them and we needed the extra inventory. Come Friday afternoon and Saturdays the video rental operation was very lucrative. We could pay off the purchase price of a VHS movie in 3-5 weeks at most and the rest was pure gravy.

 

[norcalscott]

Jack Horner in Boogie Nights was all against videotape. The Colonel wanted to get out in front of it.

My favorite Burt Reynolds role. His agent signed him up for it and Reynolds once he read the script he fired his agent and sued to try and get out of it. Seems Reynolds was just born to portray a sleezy porn producer. Hahaha!!! He was nominated for an Oscar (the only nomination he ever had).

Definitely my favorite Burt Reynolds’s movie - he was born to play that part! John C Reily and Philip Hoffman also were excellent.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Definitely my favorite Burt Reynolds’s movie - he was born to play that part! John C Reily and Philip Hoffman also were excellent.

Yes, lots of good acting in that movie. Philip Baker Hall that played Gondoli in that clip above passed away just this week at the age of 90.

 

[Andysu]

recently getting slowly back into VHS linear stereo hi-fi stereo . Glory 1989 , Dolby Stereo in THX sound system , what a bass buster ! the assault on fort warger , the muskets had awesome bass kick ! sounded like earthquake thunder .
i got same VHS rental once had over 20 no years-ago . i knew it had good Dolby Stereo with some audio compression and dialog sounded excellent on JBL 4673A "

i may do spectrum lab waterfall ( too many colours ) best to show results . compare scene from VHS , Laserdisc pressings , blu and 4k . but the bass and sub bass extension on the VHS was no slough here in THX sound system .

 

[Doodski]

recently getting slowly back into VHS linear stereo hi-fi stereo . Glory 1989 , Dolby Stereo in THX sound system , what a bass buster ! the assault on fort warger , the muskets had awesome bass kick ! sounded like earthquake thunder .
i got same VHS rental once had over 20 no years-ago . i knew it had good Dolby Stereo with some audio compression and dialog sounded excellent on JBL 4673A "

i may do spectrum lab waterfall ( too many colours ) best to show results . compare scene from VHS , Laserdisc pressings , blu and 4k . but the bass and sub bass extension on the VHS was no slough here in THX sound system .

View attachment 251543
View attachment 251544
View attachment 251545
View attachment 251546

I started that movie with low hopes and woW was I shown the way... Awesome movie.

 

[restorer-john]

VHS Linear Stereo was very short lived, AFAIK, the linear tracks all reverted back to mono when the widespread acceptance of AFM helical HiFi audio became 'standard'.

I absolutely loved AFM HiFi on my SVHS Mitsubishi HS-E70 unit. That was, while I was waiting for RDAT and once a Sony DTC-55ES was in my hot little hands, the S-VHS unit went in its box, never to be used again. I never played video on it, it was purchased solely as an excellent audio recorder.

One of these (internet pic)

Had complete audio level control and a wide ranging VU meter. Excellent response out to 20kHz. And a bigger heatsink (caged) than some amps!

 

[sarumbear]

I do. I remember being stunned how good movie sound was. Setup my stereo for it around our rear projection TV and experience was so much better. Alas, picture quality was terrible.

It was NTSC, Never Twice the Same Colour

 

[sarumbear]

I thought Sony copied VHS after it became obvious to everyone that Beta was doomed? Like in the late 1990s? I remember Beta well....it was decent at the time.

Beta was the better format technically but porn was on VHS

 

[sarumbear]

But Sony's Betacam format became fairly successful in the broadcast industry and gave birth to a line of analogue and digital camcorders and editing gear.

The same happened with DAT.

 

[Andysu]

VHS seems better than bluray where dialog near field sounds weak in dynamic range level .

looks like the spooks slimmed him in marshmallow

 

[Andysu]

i use specialist JVC HR725 linear stereo hi-fi stereo so it can do both . using pro in consumer . keeping it working would i think need cleaning on the bench and possible new video drum head ?

 

[Andysu]

D-VHS wow , smart phone not frame rated it sees the horizontal dlp colour roll bars . way better in person in this THX cinema . had i used the sony handicam i could adjust iso frame rate only takes extra time to upload

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Definitely possible but Sony pro was u-matic which ended up being beta. The u-matic system lasted for years in pro video.

They sold the m loading licence to jvc who in turn relicensed all sorts of vendors.

U-Matic was a Phillips system limited to 60 minutes playback and U -Matic machines were hernia inducing.
Sony were Beta never VHS which was a JVC format. While technically Beta was the better system Sony’s refusal to grant manufacturing licences meant VHS machines were more readily available. Another Beta Problem was head and tape wear, when fast forwarding or rewinding the tape stayed in contact with the head. As many have said sound quality was good and had many happy hours watching and listening too music videos. None more than a video of Fleetwood Mac’s musical and personal journey.

 

[restorer-john]

U-Matic was a Phillips system limited to 60 minutes playback and U -Matic machines were hernia inducing.
Sony were Beta never VHS which was a JVC format.

Correction:

U-Matic was a Sony designed system. It was introduced in 1971 and became the world's first, standardised video cassette professional format.

And Sony did make a huge range of VHS machines, after they finally buried Beta. I should know, I sold (and owned) a lot of them.

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Correction:

U-Matic was a Sony designed system. It was introduced in 1971 and became the world's first, standardised video cassette professional format.

And Sony did make a huge range of VHS machines, after they finally buried Beta. I should know, I sold (and owned) a lot of them.

Sorry U-Matic was a Sony format, Phillips was VCR.
Never saw or worked on a Sony VHS machine in the UK although by that time I was living in Zambia or Libya.

 

[restorer-john]

although by that time I was living in Zambia or Libya.

Well, you are totally forgiven. Did they even have power there?

 

[Suffolkhifinut]

Well, you are totally forgiven. Did they even have power there?

Zambia was OK for power we were fed from the Mine’s power station. We couldn’t buy most consumer goods they weren’t available, finding food was more then difficult. Remember we got a consignment of Finnish tinned cheese came in courtesy of the UN. Obviously we bought some opened it eagerly and it seemed to be made from latex. If any readers of this want vibration isolation for their kit, this cheese comes highly recommended. Tripoli in Libya was a different kettle of fish you could go down the Souk and buy electronic items cheaper than the UK. Power supply was intermittent at best and most Americans living there used to bring in Voltage stabilisers, believe me they were needed. You would have black outs most days, so the Government decided to go from a 127V single phase / 220V three phase supply to a 220V single phase / 380V three phase supply. Unfortunately they never told anyone when the switchover was to take place they did it district by district. Got up in the night for a drink of water switched on the kitchen light and the lamp exploded, realised I was standing in water from my GE fridge which had burnt out. Luckily nothing else had been left on. In Tripoli Sony Beta ruled the roost and VHS machines we’re sold very much, don’t remember seeing any for sale in the Souk.

 

[sergeauckland]

I used VHS-HiFi for field recordings because it was so superior to the open-reel tapes I had used up to that time. When listening in headphones, the recordings on HiFi sounded like the microphone output exactly. The S/N ration had to be at least in the high 70's or 80's--a clear step up from the high 50's for linear-tracking tape. The increase head speed made possible by putting the audio on the spinning video head really made a difference.

I still have those tapes. I wonder if I can even play them back at this point?

Rick "who hasn't had a VHS tape in the deck in many years" Denney

Back in around 1992, I exchanged a Gyrodec with Kuzma arm and Mr Brier cartridge and a Nakamichi 482Z for a brand new Marantz S-VHS VCR. I wanted it for the extended recording time as the 45 minutes of the Nakamichi weren't enough for the BBC Proms or their radio plays which were normally one hour. Used it for years until CD-R became available. Didn't use it for video much, but it did work very well for audio. Better than my previous Revox A77 reel to reel andat least as good as a well set up Nakamichi without the hassles of realigning the tape machine before every recording or change of tape type.

S.