VHS Hi-Fi: The Mediocre, the Bad and the Crappy

[mc.god]

Great review, it brings me back to my adolescence.
I use my Philip VR6585 vcr for so many years for recording cd borrowed from friends, much better than cassettes. I had tons of original music videoaccssettes since my mom worked several years at RCA Italy\BMG music video division.

I also did a couple of digital recordings with the Sony PCM501 processor that my bigger bother still have somewhere

terrific quality for what we were used to, then CD-R arrived and everything changed.

 

[lewdish]

OMG IM NOT THE ONLY CRAZY GUY WHO IS TRYING TO FIND THE HIGH END SOUND OF VHS!

 

[EJ3]

What's stopping you before next March?

MONEY
It's the month of my birthday & I hope that someone will give me some.
Of course, you could give me some, if you like. I'm easy like that.
And would put it to good audio gear use & make you proud.

 

[beefkabob]

I have a 4k LG 77" OLED. I watched some old 4:3 480 on it, it is almost unwatchable. It was probably okay in 1980 on a small screen when you had nothing else to compare it to. I am sure an old VCR with a well worn tape would be even worse. I do remember getting my first Hi-Fi VCR and renting tapes thinking...how could it possibly get any better than this? In twenty years from now when you jack directly into your brain so you can step right into the movie you will wonder how the hell you put up with a 77" OLED in 4k. Especially since it didn't even have touch, smell or taste.

The quality of the digitizer, deinterlacer, and so on make a huge, huge difference. I have a cheap digitizer box hooked up to my sony LED that makes everything look like ass. Then I plug into the back of my random store brand LCD and things are 10 times better. I haven't tried the input on my LG OLED. Could be good. Could be awful.

 

[xanalog]

@ReDFoX, Thank you for testing them and posting the results here.

Am I wrong to conclude that none of these -5 decades old- decks deserve a headless or a postman Panther award?

 

[Laniciffo]

I used to be an ic design engineer for an analog video digitizing chip. One of the hardest things was to synchronize the sampling clock with the source. With the helical recording there are discontinuities of the signal at each frame, when the vcr switches head. This could amount to several micro seconds and would happen around the vertical blanking. It was quite hard to cope with these phase jumps. Basically you had to keep the same sampling clock but once every 16 or 20 ms you had to add or subtract a totally random shift.
Moreover the SNR of the signal could reach extremely low values, especially in fast or slow motion. 0dB or worse was common.
VCRs really were the sources I hated most !

I do not know about the hifi sound system, though. But I assume it was still dependent on the video synchronization system.

 

[johny_2000]

after some examination, it's not that much weirder than the obsession with vinyl as a playback medium.

And overall perfomance are approximately the same, at best ~60-70 dB SINAD.

 

[Curvature]

And overall perfomance are approximately the same, at best ~60-70 dB SINAD.

You're getting more like 25-40dB after including the cartridge. Channel separation also makes out around there.

 

[Curvature]

I used to be an ic design engineer for an analog video digitizing chip. One of the hardest things was to synchronize the sampling clock with the source. With the helical recording there are discontinuities of the signal at each frame, when the vcr switches head. This could amount to several micro seconds and would happen around the vertical blanking. It was quite hard to cope with these phase jumps. Basically you had to keep the same sampling clock but once every 16 or 20 ms you had to add or subtract a totally random shift.
Moreover the SNR of the signal could reach extremely low values, especially in fast or slow motion. 0dB or worse was common.
VCRs really were the sources I hated most !

I do not know about the hifi sound system, though. But I assume it was still dependent on the video synchronization system.

@ReDFoX would you be able to use a j-test for measurement? The idea's a little absurd, but could be revealing.

 

[Mart68]

I shudder to think what a VHS tape would look like on my 82 inch TV today!

I'd like to find out since I still have a Philips VCR (less than 100 hours on it as I bought it new about 6 months before DVD arrived) and loads of tapes, but connecting it to a modern TV isn't straightforward.

 

[DSJR]

That (very un-good [as it was in sad shape]) Nakamichi Dragon was a not even close to par one.
It was in sad, sad shape.
If they had had it refurbished before they sent it to Amirm, they could have done just as well as throwing the money into the fireplace with a lit fire in it.
I, unfortunately, do not own one of the caliber of a properly working NAK Dragon but mine (JVC & Kenwood [while no where near CD quality]) work better than that NAK Dragon was capable of (for whatever reason).
I remember being stunned by how bad that deck was

I knew the Dragon well (too well in fact ). The mechanism HAD to be kept spotlessly clean and it in its early days, was very tape-mechanicals-fussy, a pre recorded one of a Mahler piece (DG label, so not a pop/rock sample) having the azimuth sensors going ape and clicking one way and then the other... Meters were too slow on early ones but a pal's later sample seemed as good as the standard Naks.

Someone who hopefully should have known, told me that the whole calibration/eq settings of (domestic) Dolby S were based on the Dragon playback eq curve.

I had a mint CR7 for a while, but I came upon difficult financial times in the mid 90s and this, the Revox high speed B77 with copy master tapes and the Mentor vinyl player, all were sold. The CR7 was set low down near the floor and it didn't sink in as to what I was selling until the buyer (a dear now deceased friend of mine who had a 'museum' full of audio gear) had it on the kitchen table to clean prior to boxing up. It was some machine whatever the limitations of cassettes in general.

Apologies, can't help but reminisce. To all the young-guns here half my age or less that missed all this first time around, may I just suggest that our hearing is nowhere near as 'golden' as audiophools would suggest it is and our brains also can make up for all manner of reproduction issues and faults. A decent cassette recording (properly aligned Dolby - which most weren't, or no Dolby at all despite hiss on Type IV 'metal' tapes which hold hf better for longer) of decent material can still sound good today if 'hissy.' Yes, I know DAT walked all over cassette in almost all respects, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here.

 

[ReDFoX]

I used to be an ic design engineer for an analog video digitizing chip. One of the hardest things was to synchronize the sampling clock with the source. With the helical recording there are discontinuities of the signal at each frame, when the vcr switches head. This could amount to several micro seconds and would happen around the vertical blanking. It was quite hard to cope with these phase jumps. Basically you had to keep the same sampling clock but once every 16 or 20 ms you had to add or subtract a totally random shift.
Moreover the SNR of the signal could reach extremely low values, especially in fast or slow motion. 0dB or worse was common.
VCRs really were the sources I hated most !

I do not know about the hifi sound system, though. But I assume it was still dependent on the video synchronization system.

So, that chip had some kind of TBC built in? Or it was just for passing head switching portion of the signal?

@ReDFoX would you be able to use a j-test for measurement? The idea's a little absurd, but could be revealing.

I don't really think that digital J-test will show anything useful... Head switching gaps are filled with a separate generator, AFAIK.

 

[A Surfer]

Back in the day my brother and I made great mixes for parties on VHS. We had a nice Hitachi machine and made pretty respectable recordings with it.

 

[Billy Budapest]

I remember hat in the past there have been so called PCM adapters that digitized audio to a signals to a signal that could be recorded on VSH. Way back the same from TV Signal to analog Audio like a DAC.

Bitte entschuldigen Sie die Störung...

Sure were.

The Sony PCM-F1 from 1982 was so sturdy and rugged that it’s still in use today in some studios for 16/44.1 applications, especially those upgraded with Apogee digital filters.

 

[DSJR]

Sure were.

The Sony PCM-F1 from 1982 was so sturdy and rugged that it’s still in use today in some studios for 16/44.1 applications, especially those upgraded with Apogee digital filters.

Back in the very early 80s, Linn cut half an album (Dove Across The Water), one side using the analogue master and the other, the same take (unedited) cut from a Sony F1 system. The feedback was largely in favour of one particular side (the one with a little studio-talk between tracks) and this, to Linns apparent consternation as they told me, was the digital one... the analogue mix would have been to 30IPS two track on half inch tape with no noise reduction I suspect, although I have no proof

 

[Curvature]

Back in the very early 80s, Linn cut half an album (Dove Across The Water), one side using the analogue master and the other, the same take (unedited) cut from a Sony F1 system. The feedback was largely in favour of one particular side (the one with a little studio-talk between tracks) and this, to Linns apparent consternation as they told me, was the digital one... the analogue mix would have been to 30IPS two track on half inch tape with no noise reduction I suspect, although I have no proof

The tape side, as far as I understand tape, would have had uneven FR.

Response Curves of Analog Recorders

Response Curves of Analog Recorders

www.endino.com

 

[Laniciffo]

So, that chip had some kind of TBC built in? Or it was just for passing head switching portion of the signal?

I don't really think that digital J-test will show anything useful... Head switching gaps are filled with a separate generator, AFAIK.

Yes, Time Base Correction is the right wording.
We had to generate a very stable 27MHz clock but those phase jumps would constantly disturb our pll.
Handling the expected discontinuity as an exception was the way we found to keep the sampling clock as steady as possible.
The use of additional heads was especially for that. The heads were not evenly spread around the drum (?) the additional ones were very close to the 2 main ones, in the hope that at least one would still read a signal while the opposite side of the drum started to read the next frame.
But our whole architecture was wrong anyway, and I'm not proud of what we did at that time. The chip (stv2310) was a complete failure and St microelectronics eventually closed the whole business.

 

[ReDFoX]

Yes, Time Base Correction is the right wording.
We had to generate a very stable 27MHz clock but those phase jumps would constantly disturb our pll.
Handling the expected discontinuity as an exception was the way we found to keep the sampling clock as steady as possible.
The use of additional heads was especially for that. The heads were not evenly spread around the drum (?) the additional ones were very close to the 2 main ones, in the hope that at least one would still read a signal while the opposite side of the drum started to read the next frame.
But our whole architecture was wrong anyway, and I'm not proud of what we did at that time. The chip (stv2310) was a complete failure and St microelectronics eventually closed the whole business.

Damn, that's unfortunate... Does stv2310 have some form of line time base correction? I mean, keeping every line's start&end timing the same. Typically used Philips SAA chips don't provide that(
I would greatly appreciate any info regarding the entire digitization process that's happening, especially if it was PAL

 

[ReDFoX]

@ReDFoX, Thank you for testing them and posting the results here.

Am I wrong to conclude that none of these -5 decades old- decks deserve a headless or a postman Panther award?

We're talking foxes here
They deserve (except JVC) a "slightly uncomprehending" fox, IMO.
Apart from compatibility issues (2 extra heads), you're good until you push levels above the certain point...

 

[thewas]

I used to be an ic design engineer for an analog video digitizing chip. One of the hardest things was to synchronize the sampling clock with the source. With the helical recording there are discontinuities of the signal at each frame, when the vcr switches head. This could amount to several micro seconds and would happen around the vertical blanking. It was quite hard to cope with these phase jumps. Basically you had to keep the same sampling clock but once every 16 or 20 ms you had to add or subtract a totally random shift.
Moreover the SNR of the signal could reach extremely low values, especially in fast or slow motion. 0dB or worse was common.
VCRs really were the sources I hated most !

I do not know about the hifi sound system, though. But I assume it was still dependent on the video synchronization system.

Gotta love the ASR community for such so rare insights, so thank you very much!