S-VHS vs VHS! Can you see the Super VHS difference?

The Super VHS videotape format was released in 1987 and offered improved resolution over VHS, but how much better was the viewing experience for folks watching at home? The specs say that SVHS offered over 400 lines of resolution compared to 240 lines with VHS video tape. Specifications aside, how much of a difference does it make to a viewer of these formats? In this video, I do side by side comparisons of the two formats using the SVHS and VHS versions of "Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan" and "Patriot Games", both movies were Paramount releases marked on the back as "Super Source Video".
Equipment Used in this demonstration:
Panasonic WJ-MX50A Digital AV Mixer / Switcher
Panasonic DMR-ES15 DVD Recorder
JVC HR-S5900U Super VHS ET VCR (Video Cassette Recorder)
Zenith VC5442 VHS VCR
0:00 Intro / Open
0:29 Super VHS Description
0:52 Equipment Used for this demonstration
1:45 Format Comparison Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan
3:31 Post Production Comparison, "Genesis" sequence of Star Trek II
4:10 Post Production Comparison, "Patriot Games"
4:32 Conclusion of comparison, acknowledgements, and close
Thank you to MusicBoomerang member drmars for generously donating these two Super VHS tapes to ThriftyAV for review.
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#ThriftyAV #SVHS #SuperVHS

[@richiereyn]

S-VHS though having a slightly sharper picture due to its extended luminance bandwidth, still retained the same colour bandwidth as standard VHS, which is why, in spite of its sharper picture was never considered by broadcasters to be up to broadcast standard. If you compare the picture quality of S-VHS to Hi-Band U-matic, which actually has a lower resolution, it blows S-VHS out of the water. Better S/N ratio and higher colour bandwidth. If you were seriously into buying pre-recorded content and could afford the higher costs, Laserdiscs were the way to go.

[@lemonherb1]

I remember seeing in the news back then reporting that SVHS was the future and I was really looking forward to it, but never saw any movies released for it. I did eventually buy an SVHS VCR. It was great for recording TV shows that I wanted to keep, and my friend borrowed it to master wedding videos

[@ThriftyAV]

In the mid-1990s, when I first started my career in broadcast, our production department moved from 3/4" U-matic to a Panasonic AG series professional S-VHS camera for commercial production. I wanted one for myself, but it was too expensive for my limited budget. Eventually MiniDV and Digital8 leapfrogged S-VHS in quality, so I purchased one of those cameras back in 2000.

[@diogofaria5965]

@@ThriftyAV Bought one AG4700 the other day for 45€. Unfortunatly, it was malfunctioning and I returned it.

[@adamjhuber]

If you used S-VHS to record OTA, you were wasting your money. S-VHS could record more signal that came out OTA. Same with VHS. So there is no benefit at all using SVHS for OTA recordings.

[@AC3handle]

@@ThriftyAV Was the cost on Svhs cheaper the Umatic or was it simply that Umatic was being discontinued and television stations were forced to use Svhs for shows and commercials? Umatics held up like tanks from what I remember, extremely bright and as high a resolution of the times.

[@electrictroy2010]

@Adam : VHS recorded only 3 megahertz while broadcast had a theoretical maximum of 6 megahertz (although in reality is was closer to 4.4 megahertz). POINT: Even from broadcast the SVHS captured more detail than VHS.

[@kingcrimson234]

S-VHS is really good, but as far as the old analog formats go, Laserdisc will always be the king.

[@mr.electronx9036]

d-vhs is not bad at all

[@lain328]

MUSE/Hi-Vision LaserDisc at 1030i is not bad at all as well.

[@Petersonmgee]

Laserdisc is not analog stupid

[@lain328]

@@Petersonmgee You should probably do some more research before you comment on somebody being stupid or not. LaserDisc started as fully analog and later added digital audio. The video side has always been analog technology. 1080i LD is not the same as today's Blu-ray or DVD and older DVHS. If you bothered to read just 10 minutes worth of LaserDisc information you would have known this. Congratulations on making yourself look stupid.

[@Petersonmgee]

@Chicago you’re seriously uneducated

[@vanbelkom]

That switcher is an absolute treat

[@deckofcards87]

25 / 40 less lines of res than Laserdisc. Had no idea SVHS was that good! Great video.

[@dylan-nguyen]

Remember MUSE Laserdiscs in the 90s can’t believe they got HD video back then

[@donandremikhaelibarra6421]

@@dylan-nguyen yup those had even better resolution than even DVD

[@electrictroy2010]

MUSE is an analog format, so it’s actually variable resolution. It might be 1920 across on still images, but quickly drops to 900 on moving images. Still better than DVD (720) but not by much.

[@electrictroy2010]

You can see that variable resolution on demonstration videos posted to youtube

[@ezpainting4697]

This video brings back alot of memories during my younger days. Nice.

[@anthonyperkins7556]

S-VHS was an improvement to sharpness detail and clarity of video picture quality over 260-270 lines of VHS recorded pictures on premium quality VHS VCRs like Panasonic Mitsubishi etc. A lot of European and budget machines didn't quite get up to the standard of the Japanese brand VCRs when it came to picture quality, usually eking out 250 lines or less in SP mode.

[@azshaw123]

Why did you not use the jvc s-vhs deck for both tapes?

[@howardwebster502]

It must be remembered that whilst analog Broadcast TV in North America was only 330 lines horizontal resolution, in Europe and worldwide other PAL and SECAM countries it was well in excess of 400 lines. In the UK where the video bandwidth was marginally greater it was possible to achieve 500 lines on a top of the line TV. So there was a great advantage in using a S-VHS VCR as a time shift device in these areas. I bought one for this purpose in 1992 the improvement versus a good VHSHQ VCR was outstanding.

[@bennyflexofficial9325]

love the video man. very informative, concise, and well done.

[@nowt1002]

You can see on the post production comparison the ringing on the stars on the vhs that's absent on the svhs

[@mraaron1584]

paramount didn't actually release the SVHS releases. there was a small company in the us called super source video who was paying for the rights to release a small handful of movies on Super Vhs. on some of the releases they were using the normal VHS boxes and they would just take a stick and paste SVHS over top of the VHS logo so they didn't have print special boxes for them. They weren't even sold in stores u had to mail order them direct from Super Source video.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

A demonstration of ET mode would be good too. Or the regular VHS cassette hole hack. Maybe I can provide one some time.

[@ThriftyAV]

ET mode vs true SVHS vs Hole Hack. Very good idea.

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

I had an S-VHS camcorder and S-VHS player and I was super proud of it :D

[@ThriftyAV]

I have an S-VHS-C camcorder, and I have noticed a more significant difference in quality between S-VHS and standard VHS on home recorded video compared to studio released tapes. kzbin.info/www/bejne/oXqYo36jqb6FlZY

[@UncleAwesomeRetro]

@@ThriftyAV Ah, right. I had S-VHS-C videocamera.

[@electrictroy2010]

What studio released tapes? I tried to find some, but nothing. (Just subpar public domain & documentaries.)

[@BenWillock]

ILM did a huge amount of work on Star Trek. The original models from the movies and the TNG series were built & shot at ILM.

[@owensmith7530]

I take it this is using NTSC tapes? I'm in the UK and have a Panasonic NV-HS950 S-VHS deck. The difference between VHS and S-VHS is much more noticeable with PAL. I've seen it argued that NTSC S-VHS looked hardly any better than VHS because it was limited by NTSC itself not the S-VHS standard. PAL on the other hand has enough resolution to take full advantage of S-VHS.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

S-VHS looks good from an NTSC camcorder. There's some ATSC tuners and satellite tuners with S-Video. Some of the standard def ATSC channels are rather blocky and compressed, so maybe the S-VHS might have a harder time replicating that. But the HD channels are usually good.

[@electrictroy2010]

NTSC has a theoretical max of 6 megahertz & VHS can only record 3 megahertz. So upgrading to SVHS will capture more of the NTSC signal

[@adrinathegreat3095]

In the USA and Japan laser disks may have been the thing, but they're virtually unheard of in Europe. About 10 years ago a friend of mine archived all his digital camcorder home movies weddings etc to standard VHS. And chucked the tapes and sold the camera. I said why did you not send the digital tape files to your pc or laptop, he said I'll just transfer the VHS to pc one day and it'll be fine. I explained how much resolution and detail you've thrown away. He said it looked fine on his TV.. a 32 inch, but now he's got a 50 inch and he's realised how soft the images are. People did a similar thing with 8mm home movies back in the day, transferred them onto VHS looked good on a 32 inch TV screen, certainly as good as they remembered them looking on a 60 inch projector screen. Until they watched them later on much bigger screens and saw how bad they looked. Unfortunately many did the same thing and junked the higher res movie film for the convenience of low Res VHS tape. And there's really little you can do when your dealing with just 240 lines of resolution and you are watching on a large screen.

[@electrictroy2010]

WOW people are stupid. They should know that VHS is the oldest & therefore least detailed format. Logically they should have used those tape to DVD transfer services

[@NozomuYume]

@@electrictroy2010 Unfortunately a lot of fly-by-night transfer services did a terrible job of it -- poor time base correction, low bandwidth, etc.

[@GeoNeilUK]

I think the real problem with SVHS is that it wasn't backwards with standard VHS players. If you had a standard VHS player and wanted to watch an SVHS tape, you needed a new player or the picture looked really bad.

[@ThriftyAV]

Some later VHS models offered Quasi-SVHS playback including a Zenith I picked up at a thrift store. It will play SVHS tapes at VHS resolution and looks fine.

[@Sk0gg1es]

Really cool! Always kinda wondered what differences there truly were between SVHS and VHS. Definitely nowhere near the jump to DVD (and especially not Bluray!).

[@ThriftyAV]

One thing I did not address is chroma. Chroma bandwidth on both the VHS and S-VHS format is the same, and limited to 400kHz. This leads to "color bleed" and a noisy color signal that is worse than Sony Betamax, 3/4" U-Matic or pretty much any other tape format. DVD utilized the full 480i capacity of NTSC, and the 4:2:2 sub-sampling offers much cleaner and more accurate color.

[@electrictroy2010]

VHS was also 480i (technically 486i ). It was mainly the horizontal resolution that suffered due to having half the MHz bandwidth of NTSC.

[@seekingfreedom9020]

Don't forget the Super Video CD. That was far superior than VHS. I remember it being near DVD quality

[@DJAllOut]

Would you really notice the difference between SVHS and VHS on a typical CRT at the time? I feel like it wouldn't have been worth the money

[@owensmith7530]

You could easily see the difference, at least with PAL on a 21" CRT.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

The difference is more noticeable considerably on a CRT designed for S-Video or a component CRT with an external S-Video converter.

[@owensmith7530]

My 21" Sony Trinitron took S-Video input on its SCART 2 input (RGB on SCART 1) and my S-VHS deck outputs S-Video over both SCART and a 4 pin S-Video connector. SCART was the main video connection in Europe for CRT TVs and standard definition on LCDs, before HDMI took over. Component was rarely used in Europe except on projectors, which most people did not have.

[@frankprovasek5394]

Yes, S-VHS produces a 60% improvement in (luminance) picture detail, or a horizontal resolution of 400 vertical lines per picture height - versus VHS's 240 lines. S-VHS captures greater picture detail than even NTSC analog cable and broadcast TV, which is limited to about 330 television lines. I could barely tell S-VHS recordings off a good TV antenna were not live broadcasts except for the head switching artifacts and the lack of a time base corrector (some semi-pro models had a TBC )

[@alyanni]

Very cool comparison. A question: can you explain how a video source with 240 or 400 lines could fit up into a 525 or 625 lines in a regular Tv???? I mean how the technology fill the rest of the missing lines??? Greetings

[@mcshaggyswildadventures3952]

it stretches it horizontally or vertically

[@electrictroy2010]

You’re confusing vertical & horizontal. 240 lines for VHS or 400 for Super VHS is a horizontal measurement using a technician’s graph. And being analog, it is variable. 525 is a vertical measurement for the number of scanlines on NTSC. (Note only 480 are visible; the rest are syncing pulses, closed captioning, resetting the CRT, etc).

[@adokapo]

Svhs looks sharper but i wonder if it was really that visible on CRT. It is clearly visible on LCD but that was hardly wide used tech in vhs days.

[@geraldford6409]

Wasn't aware of commercial SVHS releases, at least around the Midwest in the 90s. Mentioned in the video, LaserDisk was the goto format for videophiles and film buffs from the mid 80s through end of the 90s when the kinks were worked out for DVD, really post 2000. Got my LD player circa 1992, with 27" Sony XBR Trinitron, dual JVC SVHS decks, Philips CDI, 100 disc Pioneer CD changer and dual cassette deck. Two Mom & Pop video rental stores within walking distance rented LD's. NO copy protection on LaserDisk, so LD>SVHS was nice ;)

[@semola1993]

VHS are the vinyls of the movies. is a really underrated tecnology but will increse the popularity in the next years especially new versions of s-vhs-c

[@duotronicnone4572]

Personally, I find the difference to be negligible. In fact, I kept having to look at the labels to really know for sure. I wonder how much the original transfers play a role here. It's one thing to release on a superior medium, but if you're using the same transfer which might not be that great to begin with... Along with the resolution increases of DVD and Blu-Ray and 2K, 4K, etc., they were also usually creating newer and better digital scans of the films that would look better even without increased resolution.

[@ThriftyAV]

Duplication facilities typically used 1" Type C reel-to-reel sub-master tapes for VHS duplication. This format offered about 300 lines of resolution, so if 1" were used in the duplication process for S-VHS, then it would be a bottleneck in the quality of the final product. I tried to do some investigation into "Super Source Video", the mastering/duplication service used for these S-VHS titles, but I couldn't find anything about the sub-master tape format. There were several video tape options that exceeded 400 lines of resolution when these S-VHS tapes hit the market including HDV-1000 (1035 lines, 1" format), D2 (450 lines, 3/4"), and D3(450 lines, 1/2"). If a viewer knows more about the sub-master format used by Super Source Video, hopefully they will say something in the comments.

[@nickdiba7512]

@ Duotronic None : Very true and completely agree. Maybe it could be useful to make a test recording from a downconverted high quality blu-ray of the same scene on the same tape, once recording it in s-vhs and one in standard vhs, in order to eliminate all the other variables, and have a net result of the potential of vhs and s-vhs. @ ThriftyAV : But the video is very appreciated anyway. Well done!

[@analogvideochannel4612]

The players used may play some role. Ideally you would use the same player for both videos. I know these playback on these JVCs are a bit soft by default, and the ES15 dvd-recorder also has some noise reduction enabled by default that may impact things a little, youtube video compression probably does too. That said the master they were made from may have been a bottleneck as mentioned by other commenters.

[@Capturing-Memories]

There is a huge difference when compared properly, Using double compression MPEG-2 in the DVD recorder and MPEG-4 in youtube blurs out every details in the S-VHS tape which makes both look equal in quality.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

@@analogvideochannel4612 Depending on the JVC player it may actually have a soft and sharp setting in the menu.

[@JD_1978]

I own a JVC HR-S9800U Super VHS ET. All of my old home videos are VHS tapes. Seems this JVC will only output VHS recordings from the composite cables and SVHS recordings from either the S-Video cable or composite. Any tricks to making it output VHS using the S-Video cable? I thought about drilling a hole in a VHS tape to make the machine think it's a SVHS tape.

[@electrictroy2010]

That’s weird. My JVC will output VHS through S-video no problem

[@KYBlueJedi]

Can you please do a side-by-side comparison, of a recorded home video VHS played on a VHS vs a SVHS player with TBC? Id like yo know if the video difference is worth paying 500$ or more a SVHS player. I think nobody has uploaded this comparison yet.

[@bgcreations6995]

Hey MX 50 Video switcher. Then I went to AG-MX70. Lot of memories.

[@Ace411275]

I believe SVHS saw more adoption in the Broadcast Television Production and Tape House transfer industry due to its resolution and backward comparability with VHS...

[@ThriftyAV]

I can verify that SVHS was used at KAUZ-TV for commercial production starting in 1995 while the news department kept using 3/4" U-matic. However, I remember some clients being unhappy with the chroma noise on the footage.

[@Ace411275]

@@ThriftyAV Iv noticed a lot of Broadcast SVHS machines being sold on ebay as of late... more so then home recorders. so that led me to believe that SVHS was used more in the production environment..

[@DK640OBrianYT]

There's basis for improvement on S-VHS these days. Firstly, newly made recordings from excellent and perhaps remastered digital sources gives better outcome with lower chroma noise than was ever possible before with analogue live broadcast or even from LaserDisc. Secondly, S-VHS machines were made to have a go with any tape, but like with audio cassette machines, these can be calibrated to work at their very best with specific tape emulsions, such as the best S-VHS in the world, the famous FUJI H471S, which is also used as D-VHS tapes, hence why many enthusiasts are using this tape and drill the needed hole for detection.. Thirdly and a bit on a sideline here. You're using the apparent best method of transferring material from S-VHS/VHS to the digital domain, through a DVD-recorder. If you look carefully at all the cheap Analogue to Digital/HDMI converters out there, they lack the bandwidth necessary to transfer S-VHS or even VHS. They cut at 3MHz or lower whereas 5MHz and higher is what you need for S-VHS and Hi8. What is needed is a thorough technical review of the many Analogue/Digital video converters out there, seeking out the best. Preferrably with older framegrabbers for the PCI-socket included.

[@ThriftyAV]

I agree that a technical review of different conversion methods would make a good video, but acquisition of multiple converters to create such a video is beyond my limited budget at this time. In the meantime, I have 7 different DVD recorders that could be compared, along with one EZ Cap style USB A/D device, and I already know this device is substandard.

[@DK640OBrianYT]

​@@ThriftyAV I got my third paragraph wrongly laid out. What was important was the ability to throw high quality material onto S-VHS. It's here with HDMI to Analogue I've experienced astonishing low bandwidth converters. They're cutting the PAL-resolution severely and the two HDMI to Analogue converters I've got displays 352x288 pixel VCD-resolution to my best knowledge, based on the broadcast test cards I've burned onto DVD.

[@electrictroy2010]

I record HD broadcast direct to Super VHS for long term storage. The quality is near DVD (though still suffers chroma blur).

[@redbullninja11]

will a super vhs VCR make regular vhs tapes look better?

[@deaddycruel]

usually yes. His example is uncorrect

[@goooglepomidorkin8083]

It seems to me that this is just marketing of the 80s, in any old VCR you can find electronic circuits and output the color signal and the luminance signal separately and you get the same s - video output

[@ThriftyAV]

An example of what you mentioned would be VHS/DVD combo units where both the DVD & VHS signals can be output through the S-Video connection. The S-Video output is not the only difference with SVHS machines. The luminance carrier frequency was increased from 3.4 MHz to 5.4 MHz, allowing more bandwidth, thus more lines of resolution. However, the chroma frequency remained at a low 0.4 MHz. Limited color bandwidth meant colors were soft and noisy for both VHS and SVHS.

[@bigoranget]

I don’t ever remember seeing SVHS releases when I went to retail stores. It’s been a number of years since I was in college but I recall the svhs only really improved the luminance resolution where as the colour resolution (chrominance) was either the same or only marginally better than VHS.

[@mraaron1584]

they were sold mail order by a company call super source video.

[@anasevi9456]

problem with S-VHS is very few had the display to do it's slight but distinct bump in quality justice. Still have to respect JVC for being bothered during the thick of the Betamax myth.

[@juanjoserivasgarcia2336]

One question please: is possible to play a VHS video on a S-VHS machine? it will improve the image connected to the screen with an S-video cable? or it doesnt work like that?

[@ThriftyAV]

S-VHS machines can play back VHS. As far as S-video vs composite, I'm not sure that it will make much of a difference it will make on such a low-res signal. This might be a good experiment for a future video.

[@norbkowa]

Yes. Itbwill make picture of vhs slightly better especially if your vcr is connected through svideo but will see some difference on composite.

[@electrictroy2010]

Probably better to feed the VHS composite directly to the TV as its 3D COMB filter will do a better job separating chroma & luma.

[@electrictroy2010]

For S-VHS tapes which already have separated chroma & luma on the tape, use the S-video

[@linvol20]

this is unrelated but i got my hands on a dvd/chs player. I do not know if the s-video out will playback my normal vhs. i need a s-video cable to test which i do not have. fro your experince will my vhs play from the s-video? thank you.

[@8bitwidgets]

Awesome video! Thanks for the great comparison. Is there a good place to find s-vhs movies? all i see are a handful of (not thrifty) s-vhs tapes on ebay. i'd like to do similar comparisons like you did in your video for my own hardware. i have a few machines i'd like to compare and also compare to my own s-vhs movies (using an AG-450, i was able to get restored) and just have some benchmarks of quality above my own amature meanderings.

[@ThriftyAV]

These S-VHS tapes were donated to my channel. If you are lucky you might find some studio S-VHS hiding amongst standard VHS at the thrift store, but there are pickers who know about demand for these, so you gotta beat them to it. I'm a Panasonic fanboy and back in the 1990s, I really wanted an AG-450. Nice piece of vintage hardware. Nice channel, BTW. I subbed and will keep an eye out for your s-vhs vid.

[@8bitwidgets]

@@ThriftyAV oh that's great. it's awesome folks donate stuff for the greater good. I'm going to keep looking but i have come up with a good (albeit homegrown) alternative is to take a DVD and record a given movie to each of my decks as a consistent source material and then compare those recordings. Do you think DVD would be a high enough quality to do S-VHS justice? I have a possible lead to buy a laser disc player and am kinda wondering if maybe that would act as a better source than DVD? As for the AG-450. They are surprisingly common on ebay even under $100.. but you gotta quiz the sellers to have them do some basic tests.. some sellers will not want to bother, but most in my experience will work with you. most important thing and easy to test is making sure you can see out the aperture. I have learned that these have mechanical ones and sometimes when sitting off for (30) years causes them to freeze up. however even this can be addressed..like mine. i know a guy who could service it if that's the problem that might be willing to help if you need a person. you can still buy batteries for them too at a fair price. I hope to make more videos in 2022.. i'm just really bad at grabbing a camera when i'm in the middle of something that might be interesting.. Video Toaster restoration has been my current project i hope to reveal soon.. thanks!

[@pietrikapoulin2891]

Do a video on EDBeta vs. regular Beta.

[@musicman8270]

I actually had that Wrath of Khan SVHS. Those were the days. Of course the 4k of the movie is light years better. Yes laserdisc was the way to go for prerecorded content. I had about fifty of those. But I had SVHS for one simple reason... you could record on it.

[@Capturing-Memories]

No the difference is much more than what you have come to discover, Your mistakes are: 1- DVD is not the medium you want to use for this job, It's not about resolution, MPEG-2 compression is crappy plus youtube mp4 compression you have nothing left to show, You should capture lossless AVI 4:2:2 and, de-interlace with QTGMC, resize to 1440x1080 and upload to youtube. 2- You should use the same S-VHS VCR for both tapes and use S-Video out for both not composite. That's what's called a fair comparison.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

KZbin gives a blocky codec for 1080p anymore. You probably have to upscale around to 2.5k.

[@Capturing-Memories]

@@jeffkardosjr.3825 No, KZbin cutoff is 720p, Anything below is compressed for SD, above is compressed for HD with better bitrate. Why 1080p and not 720p? There is no 720p monitors are being made anymore so the monitor or TV will upscale to 1080p anyway so may as well do it at the source, 1440x1080 is the 4:3 aspect ratio for analog video.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

@@Capturing-Memories I'm phone posting right now. I uploaded a 8Mbps 1080p video at nominal 24fps. It might take a while for KZbin to process it fully, but if you can, let me know what the stats for nerds shows. kzbin.info/www/bejne/bYeTmaajiKiqj68

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

@@Capturing-Memories Just as I expected, the Sunset 1080p video I uploaded was encoded as avc1.4d4014 I have a 4K video set to private that is doing vp09.00.51.08.01.01.01.01.00 bt709.

[@Capturing-Memories]

@@jeffkardosjr.3825 I don’t get what you are trying to prove, just to remind you we are talking about resizing and uploading videos originated from tape captures, not true HD videos.

[@CrashCarson14]

Are there any VHS players that can split and out of component?

[@ACommenterOnYouTube]

No ... component came out with dvd.

[@inch830]

Good job

[@bagalexey]

The problem is not only with resolution, the dynamic range here is terrible, colour space is terrible. In the 20''s of 2000''s here is Rec. 2020, which is obligatory for HDR. So how to make true analogue video with 420 lines resolution and HDR gamma colour gamut is a BIG question.

[@jackmilne9764]

Gutted your in America not UK I brought a SVHS machine on eBay and the VHSc convertor tape got stuck. Since mechanism has gone. UK I could ask you for repair prices ha

[@newecreator]

0:33 ...and claimed 400 lives in resolution? I misheard that.

[@VoyageOne1]

In audioland, the S-VHS format was widely used for ADAT!!!

[@ThriftyAV]

I wanted an ADAT recorder so badly in the eary to mid '90s, but settled on a Tascam 424. By the time I could afford digital multi-track, hard-drive based DAWs were out, so I got a Yamaha Aw16g.

[@LosmundosdeENORM]

Thanks for the video ! Do you recommend use a s-vhs connection to capture a vhs tape? or can i get the same quality using a rca connector? My players is a s-vhs. Thanks in advance ! how the player recognizes the vhs or s-vhs tape? maybe is a little hole in the s-vhs plastic tape?

[@ThriftyAV]

Unlike S-VHS, the signal recorded on VHS tape has lumanance and chroma information combined, so there is no benefit to a cable that keeps those signals separate. You might as well use an RCA composite connection.

[@electrictroy2010]

AND the COMB filter probably does a better job separating chroma & luma inside the Super VHS unit. So use composite. BTW I’ve never seen a VHS that has S-video out.

[@electrictroy2010]

If copying DVD or Bluray or HDTV to SVHS then definitely use the S-video. Those formats keep luma & chroma separate.

[@goooglepomidorkin8083]

я на ВМ12 выводил отдельно сигнал цветности и сигнал яркости еще за долго как все узнали такой разъем как с-видео

[@Zielony_Ork]

Dziękuję 👍🏻

[@tasmanjones84]

Thanks Thriftmeister

[@tHeWasTeDYouTh]

compare S-VHS to Laserdisc. How much better the laserdisc movies looked.>>??

[@ThriftyAV]

I need to either get my LD Player up and running, or find another one... Then I will certainly do an evaluation like this!

[@TheStOne1]

@@ThriftyAV Thank you

[@billmorrigan386]

Good video. A huge like. They indeed often claim what they don't provide or what is theoretically possible but not achievable/available in practice. S-VHS format was never much different from VHS. The main difference was that S-VHS VCRs almost always had floating erase heads while VHS VCRs almost always lacked them. So editing on VHS was no good: the point (around one second) where footage is split or added is all noise and scramble. Also, VHS tapes are of worse quality. However there were VHS master tapes which were very close to S-VHS in terms of picture quality and storage reliability. The difference in this video is also partly due to this tape quality. It's a lot of hype and nothing more. I even had a few S-VHS recorders back in the day. Generally, a total waste of money unless you edit or record something and want smooth joints between sequences. One more advantage of an expensive S-VHS VCR was various picture improvement systems. So the footage looked absolutely stable like on a DVD, not even a trace of the slightest shimmer/jitter of average price VCRs. With a master tape or an S-VHS tape it looked very good back then. All their hype about resolution is mostly exaggeration gimmicks used in ads. They had impudence to write 500 horizontal lines even in instruction manuals. However they were smart enough not to write any information about horizontal resolution in the instruction manuals from Betacam SP VCRs ( *Warning: horizontal resolution is not pixel resolution. It's complicated to explain it here, and it's always explained wrong because it's actually a rocket science how it is done and calculated. My advice: just convert old VHS/S-VHS tapes to 480x640 if you need to use or show the footage on them* ). Betacam VCRs were professional grade machines that delivered even cleaner footage, especially better was the rendition of color. Yet, there wasn't that much of a difference even between Betacam and a master VHS tape on an expensive VHS VCR. They were fooling people, especially various video/audio magazines of the era. They still fool sheeple in the area of audio. They offer them vinyl nowadays at exuberant prices, cables and vinyl turntable at such prices too. Almost a scam. Back in the day, in 1990s even I swallowed their ads a couple of times. Since then I haven't even trusted instruction manuals fully. And I was right not trusting them as I have had a few nasty surprises over the years with various video machines (DV recorders, DVD-recorders, camcorders and auxiliary equipment). Bottom line: there's more difference in terms of image quality between a master VHS tape and an average VHS tape than between a master VHS/SVHS tapes. The same held true for VCRs. Most VHS VCRs were inferior in terms of image quality because they lacked various picture improvement systems that S-VHS or expensive VHS machines had. *The difference between the formats is extremely exaggerated. S-VHS format was simply a format for editing and for ENG (Electronic News Gathering). A cheap version Betacam, to put it bluntly.* Of course, it was nice to have an expensive VCR back in the day. It was really nice especially when you record something on a master tape. It showed a crisp, stable picture of what you recorded. Plus, good consumer S-VHS machines had some pro features like fast-forwarding and rewinding without distorting picture with horizontal lines (the same for slow motion). It was cool. You also could fast-forward commercials. When DVD arrived, we lost that function. Not much of a deal but it was a bit unpleasant at first getting accustomed to it.

[@billmorrigan386]

What was better than master VHS tapes + an expensive VCR? *It was Betamax ED from Sony.* Again, not in terms of resolution (they claimed it had 500 horizontal lines - they should tell it to the marines 😊 The same goes for Laser Discs or LDs and S-VHS - we can safely deduct 50-100 lines from that ) but in terms of color and crystal cleanness of the picture. Betamax ED was almost better than Betacam SP and Laser Discs. By the way, Betacam SP had around 350 lines of horizontal resolution. All high quality analog formats had about that in terms of resolution. However, there was introduced a very high quality analog format in the 80s. It's called 1'' C reel-to-reel tape. It was uberexpensive. The resolution was very high, true 450 horizontal lines (not a commercial gimmick) which is about the same quality as DV or miniDV. In terms of pixels, it's almost all the pixels of PAL or NTSC systems. NTSC has a lower vertical resolution. It means DV and 1'' C reel-to-reel tape could deliver up to 720x576 pixels of resolution in PAL and up to 720x480 pixels in NTSC. VHS, S-VHS, Betacam SP, Umatic SP, ED Betamax, Hi8 all fail to utilize all this band - they all have lower resolutions, and it's actually really noticeable if you record directly onto 1'' C vs other analog formats. The latter will max out at about 50% of it or 300 - 350 lines. Budget VCRs and non-master tapes are even worse. So they will max out around 200-250 lines. Still if you need to convert them to a digital format, you should use 640x480 or something like that. *Never 240x320!* That's because horizontal resolution is different to pixel resolution in a very complicated way. Also bitrate is very important. The higher the bitrate the better looks the footage (obviously) but it's diminishing returns. It looks so ridiculous nowadays when Digital Betacam had more than 100 Megabits per second while offering only SD (standard resolution, i.e. kinda 720x576 pixels in PAL). Nowadays we have 4K (2160x3840) footage with lower bitrates. That's hilarious. What a waste it was. To get such fast bit rates the tape had too move very fast (about four times faster than VHS/S-VHS tape) and a cassette could not hold much footage while the VCR drums were wearing faster. As a result the cassettes were pretty large. They were all half inch tapes (tape width): Betacam SP (analog), VHS, S-VHS. So, Betacam SX made more sense (around 20 Megabits per second) as some other formats such DVPro, DVCAM DV -- all the latter are around 25 Megabits per second (1/4'' inch tapes) but the pixel resolution is about the same - around 720x500 pixels.

[@billmorrigan386]

If compression is very high (typical nowadays with online stuff, e.g. KZbin videos), VHS, Betacam, and even Umatic should be converted to higher resolutions such 720p and even 1080. I was just watching some old music clips on KZbin and saw heinous quality on some of them. For example, Cheryl Crow's 'All I Wanna Do' was uploaded in 360x480 with a ton of KZbin compression - the result is heinous! That music video was mostly likely shot on Betacam SP and the quality should not be very bad. Those who converted and uploaded their stuff in 1080 looks much, much better as it preservers the quality of the original almost fully. I mean if a lot of compression is used, much higher resolution should help. These KZbin music videos are decent as high 1080 resolution saves the day: Taco - 'Putting On The Ritz' (probably shot on Umatic back in the day); Surviver - 'Eye of the Tiger' (probably converted from Umatic/Betacam); Ardis - 'Ain't Nobody's Business' (probably shot on Betacam SP). Music videos were also shot on film, especially for very famous artists. Film can have very high resolution unless it is grainy (like in Godfather) up to 4K for 35mm and even more, for example, Ben Hur was shot on 70mm film stock - it has three times the size of 35mm stock and therefore the resolution is three times higher. Examples of music videos shot on film and rescanned at high defintion: The band No Doubt had their 'Don't Speak' rescanned at high res. The same was done with Alanis Morissette's 'Ironic'. They are now on KZbin in 4K but the KZbin 4K is more like true 2K or 3K 🙂

[@jackrabbit4907]

Does someone know if Panasonic made a omnimovie hq camera in s-vhs? Thanks

[@ThriftyAV]

The camcorder I really wanted (but could never afford) in the mid to late 1990s was the Panasonic AG 450 (or 456 or 460) full size SVHS. This line of professional and pro-sumer cameras did not have "Omnimovie" branding. HQ only applies to standard VHS.

[@jackrabbit4907]

@@ThriftyAV thanks sir! i have a pv-810 and a omnimovie svhs. the omni as 8x,the 810 as 12x...even if it dosent seem to have a mic,the 810 to me as lot more options.I tought the 810 was the pro one,lol btw were is the mic on the 810?

[@ThriftyAV]

I found the manual for the 810 at manualslib... You might find the info you need in it. www.manualslib.com/manual/303286/Panasonic-Palmcorder-Pv-800.html

[@jackrabbit4907]

@@ThriftyAV thanks :)

[@nafnist]

Almost all special effects in Star Trek from that era, is from Industrial Light & Magic. Not strange at all.

[@ACommenterOnYouTube]

The average person with good eyes should be able to see the difference between 240 lines and 400 lines. Thats like a 67% gain in resolution.

[@italovalerio]

You need remake this test. Can't see S-VHS in DVD recorder or in Composite conexion, only by S-video cable. You need capture S-VHS with svideo cable to DV. You will see the big difference.

[@ThriftyAV]

I redid a portion of this comparing DVD recorder with S-Video to HDMI converter with HDMI capture, but just one scene. kzbin.info/www/bejne/g5jNaKaah5WrqNk

[@italovalerio]

@@ThriftyAV I'm very interesting about performance of this converters. Tech is not easy. I'm searching s-vídeo to Component without upscaling. I made this test years ago and the results is big. (VHS SP x SVHS SP, VHS EP x SVHS EP). To this i film a PC board focus on tracks with a HD 1080 camera and record on SVHS with svideo cable. To watch is too with svideo cable in play. Is impressive differences . To capture i used a DV camera how to bridge to PC with svideo cable (svideo cable in camera, camera with FireWire cable to PC . Format DV 4:3 NTSC Interlace LF 25mbps, same of analogic signal.

[@joshuapowell1868]

Mode switches in VCR players proven they need cleaning out every now and then everything proven online how clean out a mode switch in a VCR player

[@joshuapowell1868]

Broken vhs tape itself is fixable with Scotch tape it starts playing again with out no problem's everything proven online how to fix a broken vhs tape

[@rubenproost2552]

Couldn't see the difference in sharpness to be honest.

[@Bob-1802]

It's because comparisons on Internet are are useless IMHO. First, prerecorded movies were not very good in sharpness and quality, even in S-VHS or Laser Disk; second, a digital monitor hardly render the picture correctly (analog conversion in the monitor is usually an afterthough). If you record from a good source and watch it on a good CRT, the difference is obvious. You could almost count hairs on people 💇heads. But CRT are extinct species. You need a good conversion circuitry/algorythm to deal with the way pictures are rendered differently on a LCD TV.

[@aerobicsparadise]

Not impressed when you're using bottom basement quality SVHS machines...

[@t0nito]

I can't tell the difference in this demonstration, I did see other examples where SVHS was much sharper, but in this video I can only tell the colour difference.

[@mr.electronx9036]

The Difference between s-vhs and vhs on Standard CRT is small. But if you have a 1080i HD CRT Tv, the Differences are much bigger. You can also max out the s-video signal up to 1024 x 768 with premium gold cables. I've recorded some 4k UHD Movies via Pc on s-vhs...and they look better than original vhs movies.

[@electrictroy2010]

SVHS is only 480i so impossible to make it 768

[@GoldSrc_]

"premium gold cables" lol. And no, SVHS cannot be 768, it's just impossible, period. I get that it's an analog signal, but you should recognize snake oil when you see it. Also, only the luma got a decent resolution increase on SVHS, the chroma remained crappy.

[@deaddycruel]

Junk example. S[VHS is much better than VHS. Record resolution test video using JVC and you will see the difference.

[@joshuapowell1868]

Great news VCR players cleaning tapes vhs movies VCR belts everything proven there everywhere online now days everything proven people like myself are buying them myself offline from from my phone now days

[@zebunker]

all these jealous euro armchairs in comments section hahaha sorry you were born with PAL signals.

[@ThriftyAV]

I would like to pick up more vintage PAL gear. I have one monitor that is switchable between NTSC & PAL, but I don't have any PAL video sources to run into it. That stuff is kinda hard to find on this side of the pond.

[@Jordan-fn5rj]

VHS = trash S-VHS = worst garbage

[@REALSlutHunter]

That's no real SVHS Recorder, it's a Super VHS ET where the quality looks like S-VHS....on paper ! In reality it's just a Compromise ! Get a real one like the JVC HR-S7600 (it's pal, you need a NTSC Model) with a Quality S-VHS Tapes from Kodak. Even normal Kodak HS VHS Tapes are nearly DVD Quality, without S-VHS ET Cheating. EDIT: Poor North America, no SCART -.-

[@ThriftyAV]

When blank and pre-recorded Super VHS tapes are loaded into my JVC machine, it is capable of true NTSC Super VHS bandwidth of 5MHz. The "ET" option only applies when a standard VHS tape is loaded into the machine. JVC kept the exact specs of this technology secret, but bandwidth is greater than 3.2 MHz (standard VHS) and less than 5 MHz (Super VHS). Extra high grade tape stock is necessary for ET to work well, otherwise artifacts will appear when the tape cannot properly record the signal. Unlike standard VHS, S-VHS ET does keep Y and C signals separated. The best Super VHS machine I have ever used was the NTSC Panasonic AG-7350 that we had at a TV station where I worked. Super VHS can come close to DVD as far as luminance signal, but even the best SVHS machines suffer from lack of chroma bandwidth, resulting in a noisy color signal and color bleed. A person with experience with multiple tape formats can spot the tell-tale sign of Super VHS color bleed when compared to 1" Type C, Betacam SP, or DVD. ALL Super VHS decks are backward compatible with the VHS format. "ET" mode was simply a JVC licensed "middle ground" record/playback option between the SVHS and VHS standards.

[@REALSlutHunter]

@@ThriftyAV Ok but that model that you use is this cheap (around 80€ used) JVC Model, without the Digital TBC/NR Function (if i remember it right) and that function will get out the best from your Tape (it's not just like normal Auto-Tracking) it's clearly better with TBC/NR (i did make a test, with and without TBC/NC enabled) First i want to buy that thing too, then i read that the JVC HR-S7500 (and Upwards) are the real thing, and i bought a refurbished HR-S7600 for 220€ (with Shipping) and that thing is damn good (especially compared to DVD's with overlenght -> 180+ Minutes) The Tape and Signal Travel Distance & Signal is very important. I got standard VHS Tapes here (the yellow Kodak HS) that i recorded with a cheap Samsung TV+VCR (standard VHS) Combo Recorder back in 2004, and they look amazing for VHS (yes there are a little bit noisy, but i like grain/noise more as compression artefacts or h264/h265 deblock blurriness) they come close to NTSC DVD's with overlenght. In my expierience prerecorded tapes are often cheap noname tapes, or from a good brand, but the cheapest model, so it's not good for a comparsion. Better you record with a realy good VHS Tape and Recorder, and a realy good S-VHS Tape and S-VHS Recorder for comparsion. ps: Yeah S-Video Cables are ok, but Scart is clearly better, dont know if S-VHS is good enough so that the difference will be visible, but when you hook up a console over S-Video and then over RGB Scart.....the difference is clearly visible. ps2: Let's no forget, you hooked up a Analog Device that works interlaced, to a Flatscreen TV that has only one native Resolution (so if your TV got 1080p, the Signal will be Strechted to 1080p, because that's the only resolution that the Screen in reality can output) and use some deinterlacing (hopefully a advanced one with Motion Compensate, and not blending or bobbing alone) and in my expirience deinterlacing always kills picture quality (or create strange white dots, like Yadif) even good ones like the Yadif algorythm.

[@Capturing-Memories]

It's a true S-VHS player, The problem is the comparison is wrong, There is a huge difference when compared properly, Using double compression MPEG-2 in the DVD recorder and MPEG-4 in youtube blurs out every details in the S-VHS tape which makes both look equal in quality.

[@electrictroy2010]

I put an SVHS-ET tape into a standard VHS and it looked like garbage. Nothing was visible except video smear.

[@electrictroy2010]

Usually true SVHS tapes look “torn” but still able to see the image on standard VHS. I guess JVC is doing something nonstandard with its ET mode.