Question about VHS Tapes?

[nick101181]

I currently have a dvb-s pci card. I capture all my programs directly to my harddrive and the quality is very nice. I'm having problems getting the schedule to work, so I can't really set it up to tape stuff while I'm at work. I'm currently thinking of purchasing a new fta receiver that has component and two composite outputs as well as digital coax. I don't own a dvd recorder right now, just a old sanyo vcr from 1996. In all fairness it's a great vcr and has never given me any problems, it even looks better than the sony I bought a few years back that has 19 micron heads. I found that the sony was way too sensitive and picked up a lot of noise and artifacts that the old sanyo 4 head never did. I know all personal recordings made onto vhs tapes have that audio hiss that needs to be taken out before burning to dvd. If I use my fta receiver in conjunction with my vcr but buy really high quality vhs tapes, will the audio hiss still be present? I know how to take the hiss out perfectly without leaving that hollow garbled up sound that most ppl leave in, so that's not a problem for me. I was just wondering if higher quality vhs tapes got rid of the hiss,because it is a rather time consuming task. I also have a wintv pvr-250 card in my pc so i can only capture to vcd or mpeg2 also. There should be a way to schedule the wintv card to tape the programs from the fta box but I'm not so sure on how to have it wake the pc up for the task and turn it off after.
Thanks

[lordsmurf]

Sanyo VCR is hi-fi Stereo? or not?
Only buy TDK and JVC VHS tapes. The rest out there are pretty poor.

[nick101181]

unfortunatly the sanyo is not hi-fi vcr. At the time I needed an extra 10 bucks to buy it but didn't have it. I have to use a y-adapter to get both r and l outputs, but they are mono though. The model # is VWM-360

[lordsmurf]

Then, no, you will have hiss. Your VCR, quite honestly, sucks. The reason you get noise is because that VCR is doing a terrible job making tapes.

Buy a HiFi 4-head VHS VCR.

Best Buy has a decent Panasonic that runs $65 (and if you print out a copy of the lower Circuit City online price, they may match it for you, they did for me).

[nick101181]

The only newish vcr I can find in most Toronto stores is a jvc 4 head for 85.00. I don't think it has too many features, but it does say quasi playback for svhs tapes. I could also go for a Benq jh 300 dvd recorder but that's 129.00 plus tax and refurbished.

[lordsmurf]

That JVC 4-head VHS would work, if you want regular VHS work done. If you had the money, I'd go for a JVC S-VHS unit, one of the low-end 3000s series units for recording on, and the do "ET" mode on some good TDK or JVC tapes. You'll get stellar quality recordings from it.

[nick101181]

I have a question about the vhs tapes. I saw a few brands today and I was wondering if any of them are good. I saw

basf in a yellow box
jvc in a redish,goldish box, said SX I think ?
tdk q-hg
tdk 8 hour in a red box


the tdk 8 hour tape was the most expensive around 3 bucks or so and the basf was not far behind. Which of these is the best to get?

[lordsmurf]

Never 8-hour tapes. Thinner and poorly made almost all of the time.

JVC in red/gold is alright, the SX tapes. I prefer the non-gold all-red boxed ones. The yellow and blue box EX tapes are better. But I still use a number of those JVC tapes in red/gold myself, for some non-essential work. .

TDK EHG or DSP or (other name, I forget, gray box) is excellent. Use these for S-VHS-ET even, they're so good.

A brand new BASF tape? I did not think they'd made those in a long time, wonder if it's old stock.

At any rate, these are the best 3 tapes you're likely to find. Narrowed it down well.

Pick one of each if you can, see how each looks to you. Buy more later.