VCRs, Video Tapes, DVDs and Storage

[bigbadben]

Do VCRs play video tapes at the same quality regardless of how long it's been playing tapes? Or does it progressively lack more and more detail and get blurrier the longer you have been playing? My friend told me that the first tape you play will always be played in the highest quality because of friction and parts wear.

Do JVC and Panasonic VCRs play tapes in higher quality than other brands? Why or why not? If so why are these two brands specifically the best?

Why are DVD/VCR combo units inherently bad at playing video tapes?

What does it mean if a tape makes a screetching sound when rewinding/fastforwarding? If you are rewinding/fastforwarding and it is going extremely slowly, if you stop it and rewind/fastforward and it goes quickly, what will you have done to the tape?

If a video tape has snapped does it need to be repaired ASAP or is it fine to leave the tape hanging outside the plastic box of the video tape?

What is the optimal bitrate for MPEG2 for burning digitised VHS to DVD? What is too low and what is too high?

What would you do if your digitised video on your hard drive and backup hard drive experienced data rot in the next 10 years? What is the best medium to store these files long term to mitigate data rot?

[4kblurayguru]

What is the optimal bitrate for MPEG2 for burning digitised VHS to DVD? What is too low and what is too high?

What would you do if your digitised video on your hard drive and backup hard drive experienced data rot in the next 10 years? What is the best medium to store these files long term to mitigate data rot?

do a search for the answers to VHS, as for mpeg2 bitrate, between 3.5 Mbps to 6Mbps depending on length but i suggest crf 18 AVC encoding for media player playback, as for storage, you do 3 2 1 backup, dvd, bluray, bxdl, lto, hard drive, archival film, change them out every 10 years.

[lingyi]

Do VCRs play video tapes at the same quality regardless of how long it's been playing tapes? Or does it progressively lack more and more detail and get blurrier the longer you have been playing? My friend told me that the first tape you play will always be played in the highest quality because of friction and parts wear.

Every play causes specks of the tape to wear off, causing dropouts, those white specks you see. This is why head cleaning is occasionally required. You don't lose detail or it gets blurrier, but with use, the tape stretches slightly, causing timing errors which usually appear as skewing of the picture. \

Do JVC and Panasonic VCRs play tapes in higher quality than other brands? Why or why not? If so why are these two brands specifically the best?

Their top quality machines are prosumer/professional machines built to higher specs with better components. Both manufacturers have lower level machines that aren't recommended by lordsmurf.

Why are DVD/VCR combo units inherently bad at playing video tapes?

Jack of all trades, master of none.

[lingyi]

What does it mean if a tape makes a screetching sound when rewinding/fastforwarding? If you are rewinding/fastforwarding and it is going extremely slowly, if you stop it and rewind/fastforward and it goes quickly, what will you have done to the tape?

Most likely the tape has become sticky because the binder is failing. Play the tape completely through to prevent possible further damage. Your second question doesn't make sense. If it's moving correctly without screeching, the tape is likely fine. Be careful with standalone rewind/fast forward machines. They sometimes go too fast and can snap a sticky tape. Some cheap models don't have a brake to sense the end of the tape and will keep pulling until you eject.

If a video tape has snapped does it need to be repaired ASAP or is it fine to leave the tape hanging outside the plastic box of the video tape?

Doesn't matter. That section of tape is ruined already. As far as repair. The proper thing to do is not to splice the tape as the splice may cause severe damage to your videoheads and gum up the other parts.

The proper thing to do is to remove the reels and place them individually into new shells with an empty reel.

[bigbadben]

It's strange how as soon as I left my VCR running for more than 2 hours, the next tape I recorded had dropouts appearing every second making it very distracting to watch. Before when I recorded just that tape it had zero dropouts.

[lordsmurf]

If heads are too cold, it can strip oxide.

[bigbadben]

If heads are too cold, it can strip oxide.

My VCR, a Samsung DVD-V70 is extremely annoying. The tapes I did when the unit was off, then turned on, and immediately started recording are perfect. This means the tapes were recorded when the heads were cold were perfect. No horizontal white lines or "dropout". When the VCR is running for an hour, or even if recording is not started immediately after the unit is turned on, then the horizontal white lines start appearing. It's maddening. It has more than enough ventilation, it's on my desk with all vents able to vent hot air. Could it be faulty? I am very close to buying a different VCR just to solve this issue. I have 18 tapes to convert, and I keep having to start over and over again because of this annoying dropout.

[johnmeyer]

Do VCRs play video tapes at the same quality regardless of how long it's been playing tapes?

There are many things which can degrade with time and with use. There is no general rule of thumb because storage, operating environment (especially things like cigarette smoke) can change how clearly the tape plays.

However, by FAR the most important thing is the quality of the deck in the first place. During the later days of the VCR (the mid-1990s) there were a lot of decks that were built to be sold at ridiculously low prices (way under $US100). The picture on those units will never come close to the quality of the video you would get when playing the same tape on a professional deck.

Do JVC and Panasonic VCRs play tapes in higher quality than other brands?

Those two companies made good decks and they made mediocre decks. Sony made good decks. There was a lot of cross-licensing. For instance a lot of Philips VCRs were essentially the same as JVC decks. Don't get too hung up on brand names but instead look at what price point they sold at when new. While price didn't always guarantee quality, it is a pretty good proxy. Then, if you have a make/model you are interested in, do a little research. Try to get opinions outside those in this forum. While there are some very knowledgeable people here, there is also often a lot of attitude masquerading as authority.

Bottom line: there are lots of manufacturers other than JVC and Panasonic who made great decks.

Why are DVD/VCR combo units inherently bad at playing video tapes?

On the hierarchy from great to awful, I don't think I'd put these units anywhere near the bottom, but it is true that a really good deck which is in good shape will produce a better result. The real advantage of these units is that you can get a lot of transfer work done without having to learn a lot of technical stuff. For people who are not technical I used to always recommend these, even though I knew the results would not compare to what could be done with better units. At least they'd get the job done and not lose their VHS tapes forever, as VCRs get harder to find.

These days I wouldn't recommend them for some people because I'm now finding that many people no longer have the equipment to play DVDs. I was just asked two days ago to transfer a DVD to MP4s because the person no longer has a DVD player. So, you have to make sure that you plan to keep a DVD player around. Don't get me wrong, I'm not worried about DVD players becoming impossible to find. You'll be able to play shiny round 5-1/4" discs for as long as you are alive. Heck, I just did a paid transfer project for the estate of a famous entertainer which consisted of a lot of transcription 78 rpm records. That is a format that is now well over 100 years old. It is still easy to get the phonograph, amplifier, and stylus needed for that work.

What does it mean if a tape makes a screetching sound when rewinding/fastforwarding?

I saw an answer above that this might have something to do with oxide shedding. I suppose that is possible, but I've had dozens and dozens of VHS cassettes screech when fast-forwarding and rewinding and not once did it have anything whatsoever to do with oxide shedding. Instead, it is simply a cassette that has a hub that is slightly loose. Once again, the VHS market was populated with equipment AND tapes that were built to sell at low prices. Many of these cassettes had horrible build quality. Same thing with audio cassettes. I've often encountered ultrasonically-welded audio cassettes (a cheap way to build them) which had warped and would no longer play.

So the screeching, while annoying, usually will not harm anything. However, when I encounter one, I usually put it into a cheap deck and let it do the rewinding. If the screeching is causing the speed to slow down (the hub chattering creates significant friction) I will sometimes use a super-cheap deck and then play it in fast forward or rewind (i.e., press PLAY, then FF or REW). This will go at a much slower speed and therefore won't screech, and won't cause the friction caused by the chatter.

If a video tape has snapped does it need to be repaired ASAP or is it fine to leave the tape hanging outside the plastic box of the video tape?

Obviously you can't play it once it has snapped. I would be a little hesitant to splice the tape and would probably opt to put the second part of the tape into a new cassette and then finish the transfer. It will be almost impossible to splice the tape properly without the right equipment.

Fortunately, while I've had lots of movie film and audio tape break, I've never had any videotape break, in any of the consumer formats.

What is the optimal bitrate for MPEG2 for burning digitised VHS to DVD? What is too low and what is too high?

The DVD spec only lets you go to 9,800,000 bps (I think that's the spec). Some of this is reserved for overhead, subtitles, navigation, and subtitles. The audio also fits into that specification. The DVD player has to be able to keep up with whatever bitrate you use. I usually don't go above 8,200,000 bps for the video. As for the lowest you can use, that depends on the nature of the source material, the quality of your encoder and, of course, your quality expectations. For instance, if your video is just a talking head (like a newscaster) you could go to absurdly low rates like 1,500,000 bps. On the other extreme, if the video is of a basketball game, you would want to use something well over 4,000,000 bps (I wouldn't go below 6,000,000 bps).

I've done lots of "home movie" videos at 4,000,000 bps, using two-pass encoding with a professional MPEG-2 encoder (MainConcept/Sony/Magix or Canoupus). They turned out great.

What would you do if your digitised video on your hard drive and backup hard drive experienced data rot in the next 10 years? What is the best medium to store these files long term to mitigate data rot?

"Data rot" is not usually a problem on a hard drive. It is more of an optical media issue and was a major problem on laserdiscs (I've got LOTS of them).

If your goal is to have the video available to someone in 100 years, then there is nothing which beats a high-quality DVD. Unfortunately, the high-quality DVD blanks that used to be manufactured by Taiyo-Yuden and Verbatim are no longer being manufactured. Accelerated aging tests on that media proved scientifically that, properly stored (dark, cool, average humidity) they will outlast anyone reading this post.

Magnetic media (hard drives) are the next best. They are somewhat like magnetic tape. I've transferred magnetic audio tape from 1950, recorded at the dawn of tape media, and it played as well as the day it was recorded. I've also had very good luck with all videotapes I've transferred, from 1978 onward. However, there was a period of time when one or more manufacturers used a lousy binder and those tapes are prone to shedding and may have to be "baked." I don't know how common that really is. I have only transferred a few thousand tapes, not hundreds of thousands, so I can't tell you from personal experience. I've never had to bake a tape, but I know that other people have had to do this.