VHS on LCD TV and Newer vs Older DVD's

[Vitaforce]

How do new or mint condition prerecorded VHS tapes look on a new 46" LCD television compared to on a 15 year old 4:3 CRT 36" television? Also, is there a big difference in viewing experience on an LCD television between DVD's that came out in the early 2000's vs newer versions that are restored or remastered? If you were to buy a movie to watch on a 46" LCD TV, which would be the best value? $1 for a mint condition VHS tape version, $5 for an early release DVD, or $10 a new remastered and restored version that's anamorphic and has other buzz words lol?

[Jason]

Originally Posted by Vitaforce

How do new or mint condition prerecorded VHS tapes look on a new 46" LCD television compared to on a 15 year old 4:3 CRT 36" television?

like shit.

[Vitaforce]

Originally Posted by Jason

like shit.

Thanks for the info. Is there a significant difference between older and newer (remastered and restored versions)?

[Spiky]

Every DVD is different. Early DVDs were non-anamorphic, so they should look worse than newer editions of the same film that are anamorphic. (which is not a buzzword, it refers to the actual resolution as stored on disc) But it really depends on what they did or didn't do when making the discs. You'd have to research movie by movie. Many times the later editions are no different for video quality, just changing extras, other times they are quite superior. Sometimes they were just re-released in a new box, no change at all.

Value for quality? ....Bluray.

[mrhan]

A lot of early DVDs were also just ports of LDs so the PQ was pretty bad. VHS looks even worse; I hooked up my JVC SVHS to my 58" Panny out of curiousity and I couldn't stand watching it.

[Ash Ketchum]

Originally Posted by Vitaforce

How do new or mint condition prerecorded VHS tapes look on a new 46" LCD television compared to on a 15 year old 4:3 CRT 36" television? Also, is there a big difference in viewing experience on an LCD television between DVD's that came out in the early 2000's vs newer versions that are restored or remastered? If you were to buy a movie to watch on a 46" LCD TV, which would be the best value? $1 for a mint condition VHS tape version, $5 for an early release DVD, or $10 a new remastered and restored version that's anamorphic and has other buzz words lol?

I keep a 13-inch CRT TV/VCR combo machine just to watch VHS tapes. Flatscreen TVs, like my 32-inch Sony Bravia (the largest size my living room can handle), are notoriously unforgiving to the VHS format. There are some VHS tapes that look great on the big set, though, but those are mostly Japanese pre-records from about 15-20 years ago, and usually of much older shows ('60s-'80s). And they're not subtitled. I teach a course on anime and a lot of the older titles I have are on VHS and I have to show them on a classroom projection system that isn't kind to the format. (And some of the clips are from things I taped off cable in the slow speed!)

As for DVDs of live-action films, I'm appalled at how badly some of the older ones look on my Sony Bravia. They looked better on the old 20-inch CRT TV that I had before the flatscreen. Facial features were generally much clearer on the old set. New anime DVDs tend to look the best on the big screen TV. Luckily, I have tons of those.

[Spiky]

Sony Bravias do not have much in the way of a video processor, neither do most LCDs. That is part of the problem. Not that VHS would look "good" with a better processor.

[Alan Smithee]

VHS and Beta look decent (meaning as watchable as they've ever been) on my LCD- I have them hooked through an upscaling receiver. I have a D-VHS player that upscales too, but I only use that for playing D-Theater tapes.

One of my friends had an older projection HDTV and it magnified the video noise on tapes, but that doesn't happen on my LCD.

[caligulathegod]

I hooked my laserdisc player up and I was shocked how bad it looked. It used to be state of the art.

[rw2516]

VHS tapes transferred to dvd in then watched upscaled will look better than a tape ever did on an analog tv. I find tapes to be almost unwatchable played on a vcr with HDTV.

[Alan Smithee]

Not necessarily- I just transferred a bunch of someone's home movies, and playing back the DVDs I saw compression artifacts that weren't there when I watched them straight off the tapes.

[Spiky]

It all depends on the processing. I know people think their TV is magic, but most of them really do have crappy processors, always have. And VCRs certainly don't have quality video output, beyond the JVC 9xx series.

[Matt_]

Originally Posted by Spiky

Sony Bravias do not have much in the way of a video processor, neither do most LCDs. That is part of the problem. Not that VHS would look "good" with a better processor.

Because VHS tapes look fine on our 27" Sony Wega HDTV CRT, what technology does it have that is lacking in the Sony LCD TVs ?

[Spiky]

480 resolution mode. And CRT blacks.