VHS and VCD

Well basically VHS tapes would be distorted by any electro magnetism, which means don't store them too close to any TV or home cinema equipment, so on a bookshelf away from the TV would be best. You also want to keep them at room temperature, so nowheer too close to a radiator or anywhere near a cold window or anywhere in a draught.

DVD's can use any bitrate, but it's usually confined to under 12mbps, but this is a variable bitrate, so at times of low movement it would use considerably less, ie during movie credits.

Not all DVD players can play VCD/SVCD disks, like mie, lol. I can play CVDs, which are basically DVD format footage (MPEG-2 VOB files) burnt correctly onto a regular CD. This can be at any quality you like, and I have copied VCD footage (the Bon Jovi Shephards Bush show) onto one of these, and when played on my TV (28" widescreen) it is awful quality, much worse than even a badly degraded VHS tape.

Any DVD which has a digital transfer from the original is much better quality than other DVD, such as Attack Of The Clones; the first movie to be shot digitally. The picture on this DVD is the best I personally have ever seen, and on a PC monitor (which is higher resolution than a TV) it is fantastic quality.

I tend to agree with Thomas Anderson, the VCD's that I have watched are not by any means DVD quality, but rather much closer to VHS quality. SVCD on the other hand, is closer to DVD quality, but some pixelation does show at times

It depends wether you're watching them on a TV or a PC monitor though, as pixelation will show more on a PC monitor, even if the TV screen is larger than the monitor. SVCD is quite good quality, but compared to DVD it is not very good quality.

Like I mentioned before it is possible to create DVD quality footage with mpeg compression, but it only allows you to fit about 30 minutes on a single CDR.

For watching on a PC the best compression to use is DivX, as it can compress a full movie onto one or two cdrs and be very high quality and watchable even on a PC at full screen, as I'm sure andy would agree (if he ever reads this thread, lol)

at least i know everytime i need you and your knowwhere to be found your, erm, reading science mags

[quote="Thomas Anderson"]Well basically VHS tapes would be distorted by any electro magnetism, which means don't store them too close to any TV or home cinema equipment, so on a bookshelf away from the TV would be best. You also want to keep them at room temperature, so nowheer too close to a radiator or anywhere near a cold window or anywhere in a draught.

REALLY Well I am shocked, what stupid idiot made tv cabinets with spaces where your vhs videos should go !!!!!!!!

Dawn

Have you ever seen a VCD made from the original DVD-video source? Usually the ones circuling around the net are bad transfers from old VHS' or already converted videos. I've made about a dozen or so VCDs converting them straight from a DVD, and I bet you couldn't tell the difference if watched on a regular TV with a good DVD player.

It's the same as with CDs; people say how much better the sound is with CDs but still listen to MP3s converted to 128kbps where the audio quality is severly decreased. It's just because people can't hear the difference. They'd like to, so they fake it.

Many think they know how much better a DVD-picture is, but very few would actually notice the difference. Like I said, a TV can only show you 768x568 pixels. No more. Anything above that is wasted. And it only shows about 25 images per second, so anything above that is wasted. DVD is too good for TV, it should be used with good resolution flatscreens or video projectors. If shown a good VCD, you couldn't tell the difference on a regular TV screen.

Ice

I have made VCD's from DVD's, and they looks crap. The bitrate is only 1150kbps, and even though what you said about TV resolutions, watching a VCD on a 28" widescreen TV looks horrible.

I'm currently ripping a DVD to MPEG at 720 x 576 resolution and using an encoding bitrate of 3mbps, and I know that this looks good on a TV screen as I've done it before, but you can only fit 45 minutes of footage on a single 80 minute disc.

Most people probably couldn't tell the difference between VCD and VHS, but I know I can. My TV wasn't an expensive one (couldn't afford too much for one) but it's got a good picture, and VCD looks bad on it, as I'm so used to DVD's.

a copied dvd (to vcd format) looks the same as dvd quality. i don't care what you say, none of my mates can tell the difference. i'm with ice on this one.