If this isn’t the dumbest thread ever… What’s next, two pages of responses assuring some crazed technophobe that telephones are better than telegraphs? Some things are too obvious to argue about.
“But color TV is in COLOR!”
“So what? Did you even notice that there was no color before color TVs even came out? I didn’t think so.”
pizzabrat, please read the entire thread before posting. Thank you.
I have plenty of vcrs & dvd players, I rent them in any format they come. That way if the store only has vhs, I can play it. If the dvd has subs, but the vhs doesn’t then I can get the dvd.
BTW: Albertons (some of them) & Longs, have new ones on tuesday for 99 cents. vhs/dvd , new or old, same price.
Priceguy, don’t worry about the price of DVD players. The VHS format will be around for another 10 years, and even after that you’ll still be able to buy VCRs for years and years, just like you are still able to buy cassette tape players even though most stores no longer sell music on cassette. You won’t have to throw away your VHS tapes for years and years, until they wear out or break, or you get tired of them. There are still people with huge collections of vinyl records of classic recordings that aren’t available in new formats. If you don’t feel the need to upgrade, you don’t have to upgrade.
But in 10 years DVD players are going to be so cheap you’ll get them given away in cereal boxes. And, as you said, you’ve already GOT a DVD player…on your computer.
I agree with you that these “format wars” aren’t often logical. Often there is a standard format, with several “improvement” formats available. Somehow one gets chosen. Network effects make that into the new standard. Everyone has to embrace the new standard for it to work, but it can’t become the new standard unless everyone embraces it. DVD has jumped ahead to be the new standard. Doesn’t make it perfect, doesn’t mean you should embrace it.
Go on down to amazon.com and take a look at the DVD and VHS versions of any recently released movie. Here’s one example:
Catch Me If You Can
To Be Released: May 6
DVD Price: $19.36
VHS Price: $107.99
The price difference will stay that way for a month or two. It’s called rental pricing. It happens with almost every movie.
Priceguy, one very recent trend (recent that is out here in the boonies of NZ), is to see component stereo systems being sold with a DVD player (which also plays CDs, VCDs, CD-Rs, etc.) instead of a standard CD player. I guess they figure that people are hooking their stereos up to the TV for home theatre so why not just have the one disc player?
I suspect from reading through the thread that you’ve probably got a pretty good VCR (high play quality, less wear on the tapes, etc). Me on the other hand, had a cheapest VCR I could buy (which was known to eat tapes) and that finally gave up the ghost this year after 17 years of hard service. 
I am planning to get another one – while I like handy’s recommendation of a DVD-R they are locally around NZ$1600, so that’s out for a bit. On the other hand, I guess I’m not missing it as much as I might (I only have a relatively few things on VHS), in that it broke a couple of months back and I haven’t rushed off to replace it, whereas when our first DVD player was broken (by an enthusiastic toddler), it got replaced a few days later.
Back to the OP, I enjoy the extras that come on most DVDs – and while I agree with you that documentaries and extra scenes could be added (though generally aren’t) to VHS, the commentaries really couldn’t.
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At least 15, 20 times, back when I was stupid enough to deal with the BS format that is VHS. Cruddy picture, bad sound, limited Glorious Widescreen selection, no audio commentary, no jump-to-scene functions – VHS just plain sucks.
Fifty viewings isn’t exactly a lot.
Anything less than pristine quality from start to finish is unacceptable.
Yes it does. 90% of films on VHS do not have a widescreen version, which means they are worthless crap. Virtually all DVDs do have the widescreen version. No one who cares about film chooses to watch pan-and-hacked versions of films. With VHS, that’s usually the only choice they get.
Who cares about room? There’s no way for VHS to have screen-specific audio commentary that you can turn on and off with the touch of a button. No way to randomly access your favorite scene instantly. No way to view it on your computer.
You do realize that four hours of video on a standard tape will give you sub-par picture quality, even in terms of the murky crap that is VHS?
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It’s not rewinding when the movie is over that sucks, its the inability to jump from scene to scene instantly at the touch of a button.
It’s just an indication of how otherwordly-better the picture of DVD is compared to the unwatchable crap that is VHS.
No, you can’t do it at all on VHS. You would have to have a different version of the movie for each set of subtitles. With DVD, you can turn subtitles on and off on the fly, along wtih various different sound tracks and commentary tracks. Watch a scene and want to see what the director thought? One button to go back to the start of it, one button to pull up the director’s commentary.
If you don’t care about picture quality or the other benefits of DVD, then you are not a cinemaphile. DVD is the format for people who care about film.
Replace your tapes with better DVDs when the ratty tapes wear out. Which they will.
It’s called new release rent-through pricing. Learn something about the video industry, and then maybe your opinions will be worth something.
Not for the vast, vast majority of titles.
spectrum, everything you say in your aggressive and puerile manner has already been discussed and dealt with. I’ll give you the same advice I gave pizzabrat: read the entire thread before posting.
iamthewalrus, that’s fucked up. Like lack of widescreen, I didn’t know there were parts of the world were VHS was priced this way. It wasn’t evident in the movies whose prices I compared on page 1. Granted, they were older than a year.
Anyway, I’ve never seen this kind of pricing in real life, and had no reason to assume it existed anywhere else.
“It’ll never fly, Orville…”
Actually, I agree with you, Priceguy. It is a next-to-useless invention for you. After the initial viewing, many film buffs like to wade around in the movie to see what makes it tick. The DVD is perfect for that purpose.
It’s possible that the films you prefer don’t emphasize quality in sound and picture. But for me the desire for quality picture has not been manufactured. We got our TV in 1950 and the difference in TV reception v. movie theater projection was astounding. That’s when my quest for a better picture began. (If you are old enough to remember “ghosts” and “horizontal hold” you know what I mean.)
I’m sure there are people somewhere who still have their B&W televisions and see no real reason to upgrade to color. If that is their tastes, so be it.
For $20, I can see about twelve DVD’s a month. (That’s as many as I can work in.) They don’t have to be returned by an certain date. I can keep them as long as I wish. That gives me all the time I need to take the film apart and put it back together. With the money I save by not renting VHS, the DVD player will pay for itself in no time at all. Then everything is gravy.
Although VHS could have the extra features, most of them just don’t. And some DVD’s have so much information that you could not fit it onto a 6 hr. tape. Maybe an 8 hour tape would do, but they are so flimsy.
Maybe better picture and sound quality is sort of an acquired taste – like a really fine wine. If the wino is drinking it just for the alcohol, who’s is going to be able to explain the difference to him? Leave him alone and let him be satisfied with Mad Dog and Ripple.
Anyone who doesn’t care about DVD, is not a true film fan. I hope the films I make are never realesed on any worthless, hideous video tape format. People who don’t care enough about film to watch movies on DVD don’t deserve to have home video.
And Zoe, there’s no way VHS could have the key features of DVD. No way to do random access. No way to have on-the-fly subtitles or soundtrack switches. No way to have the crown jewel of film viewing, the director’s commentary. No way to have easy-to-access trailers or cut scenes. No way to easily navigate the contents of the product. VHS is crap. Pure, unadulterated crap. It always was. It was just the best we could do at the time.
Aside from being used to tape TV shows, there is no legimate use for VHS for film fanatics in the modern day.
Sure. I sometimes want to see a particular scene or hear a particular line all over again too. Usually I want to view the entire movie start to finish the way God intended, though.
I prefer to think of it this way: I love movies so much that a little poor sound or picture isn’t going to faze me. I know that sounds weird to all you home-cinema fanatics, but it’s just the way I am. For me, it’s the movie itself that does it, not whether I can make out the individual hairs in Robert DeNiro’s mole or hear gunshots from behind.
What am I missing? Can you rent 12 DVDs, for an unlimited time, for $20?
I have a vague feeling I should be insulted by this, but I’m really not. It’s a pretty good analogy. I’m in it to get drunk, ie the feeling I get after watching a good movie. Seeing the skyscrapers crash down at the end of Fight Club. Hearing the Dude’s wisecracks and watching him go on bowling his life away. Stuff like that.
Now, if the drunkenness is delivered via cheap malt liquor or a bottle of Dom Perignon 1875… I don’t really care.
spectrum, you’ve got issues. See someone about that.
Priceguy, you’re the one who started an entire thread just to attack people who appreciate a technology your feeble mind can’t understand.
No, I’m the one who started a thread to ask why people appreciate a technology I don’t. For some reason, people started taking this personally. John Harrison, who shares your opinions and is intelligent as well, realised that it was a pretty pointless thing to be riled up about. Apparently, so did the others. They didn’t change their opinions and neither did I, but we realised we could talk about it in a polite and mature manner.
Then you come along. You don’t read the thread before posting (or if you did, ignore what had been written, which is just as bad), and you’re aggressive, immature and hostile. You make strange accusations about me not being a true film fan (whatever that means, however you define it, and whyever I should care about your opinion on the matter).
And over what? The fact that I prefer another movie format than you do. And it’s not even that I prefer it, it’s that I feel that DVD isn’t enough of an improvement to warrant spending money on it. That’s all. It’s nothing to be upset about. It’s not a debate. I’m not lobbying to ban DVD. Nothing of the sort.
Since you’re pretty new here (not that I’m an oldster myself), and also, I believe, pretty young, I’d like to give you some advice. Keep the insults to the Pit, nowhere outside. While it is OK to have strong opinions and voice them, don’t get hostile. There’s little point, and even if it doesn’t get you banned, it will get you disliked.
Finally, and this is advice for life, not just for this board: don’t get upset about totally pointless things. One way or another, it shortens your lifespan and decreases your quality of life. Save the anger for the things that matter.
That’s the way it is here in the states, which probably helps you in understanding our rush to switch formats - there’s quite a financial incentive to switching.
Oh yes. If I lived in a place where widescreen VHS wasn’t available and VHS tapes cost $100 each, I’d switch too. Hell, one of those would be enough.
If you’re a real cinephile, priceguy, there’s an even better reason to love the DVD: VHS tapes are more expensive to produce. Therefore, many movies are just not available at any one time. But on DVD? Thousands of good… not so good… just plain bad movies from the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s… all out for you. I’d been looking for a copy of Things to Come… the Welles movie? Got it on a disc with Destination Moon, and a Buster Crabbe Flash Gordon Serial.
Oh, yeah, and one DVD holds more movie than a VHS tape. So, the aforementioned TV seasons fit on five DVDs and twenty VHS tapes. I’m an anime fan, so I like that. Five DVDs… with subtitles, dubs, or original voice, depending on how I feel. At 30 bucks a pop. Versus twenty at thirty. (I like dubbed on some shows. Bebop was very well done, I prefer Ed’s american voice).
John Wayne movies, three per disc… Heck, Ford westerns, showing up at five bucks each.
Silent movies for ten bucks.
That’s why DVDs are great. And where I am, players are down to about sixty bucks. Enjoy your trial on your computer. It’ll still play through your computer speakers, though, so you may want to just watch on your monitor. What’s your choice of genre? Let’s find you something very nice to rent.
To me, the idea of owning entire runs of TV shows is what sells DVD’s to me.
Priceguy posted:
Notice that in my comment that you quoted, I specified after the initial viewing.
I’d noticed this, but I never considered it an intrinsic advantage of DVD. Rather, I was annoyed that they’d spurt out all these movies on DVD all of a sudden after stonewalling them for decades.
I do that on VHS now.
I did. I meant after the initial viewing too, hence the phrase “all over again”.