Remember when HD Movies came on VHS tapes?
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 เม.ย. 2016
- A look at the short-lived D-Theater format which offered HD movies on VHS.
Captured D-VHS Demo Tape showing New York in 1993: • New York City in 1993 ...
D-Theater tapes can be found on eBay: goo.gl/AfCHUy
A full list of D-Theater titles is on LDDB.com: goo.gl/jGHA82
DVHS on Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-VHS
JVC's D-Theater machines: goo.gl/uKMBki
Full specs on the machine shown:
support.jvc.com/consumer/produ...
The machine demonstrated records and plays D-VHS (HS, STD, LS3) S-VHS (SP, EP) S-VHS ET (SP, EP) HiFi VHS (SP, EP) VHS (SP, EP) it doesn't have upscaling. It will output anything over Component or iLink.
The Techmoan Channel can be supported via / techmoan
-----AFFLIATED LINKS/ADVERTISING NOTICE------
All links are Affiliated where possible.
When you click on links to various merchants posted here and make a purchase, this can result in me earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network & Amazon.
I am a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to AMAZON Sites (including, but not limited to Amazon US/UK/DE/ES/FR/NL/IT/CAN) - วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
The future is 8K VHS.
Hook a HEVC/H265 decoder to a DVHS then it would be really possible. DTheater was only mpeg2 after all. 4K would be possible with H264 decoder.
Yes, it's like moving back form cd to vinyl, the sound is richer. Same goes with picture. :)
Nice Meme Not true! Vinyls have certain soft sound comparing to CD:s (if no scrach) and nostalgia IS NOT the only reason people or some like to listen it!
That doesn't explain 'soft' sound I mean!
Well I think even in vhs today's movies would look amazing because of the new vfx
Why Netflix and Chill when you can come right into my D-Theater?
Darkbeat 👏👏👏
Underrated
Bravo.
Bravo sir
Savage...
FYI, this wasn't the first HD VHS. In Japan, they had W-VHS (wide VHS) that was 1080i and was recorded in analog component format to tape (not digital). It came out in 1994. In the late 90's I worked at a public TV station. We had one of these W-VHS players connected to a CRT projector in the main conference room. It was the only way to show HDTV at the time. There were no commercial tape decks or displays out yet. The PBS station used it to WOW donors to hopefully help fund the upgrades needed to do the NTSC to ATSC conversion. I was blown away at the time too. Seeing HD when DVD had only come out a few years earlier was breathtaking.
Thanks for the video. Re-living this stuff is fun. Manufacturers have been using tape as a digital bit-bucket for a long time. It's still be used in the computing world to store terabytes of data (tape backup).
Fascinating. Widescreen, 1080i, and 5.1 audio could all on a VHS. That's incredible.
HD really makes 1993 look like 2018 with a mod installed
Underrated comment
Seeing that 1993 HD footage was epic.
Sadly 2010s is a DOWNGRADE in all ways (besides the technology), society fucked up too.
Imagine what 1493 or 1070 BCE would look like in HD!
everything was black and white and grainy before 1993
We could have had HD Movies without the stupid menus, warnings and advertisements?! Damn!
There was still ads for movies and warnings on vhs? at least it's easier to skip through on DVD and blu-ray
+Jack Torrance You can't skip the warnings at all on most blurays these days. Sometimes you can get sneaky and instead of starting the movie with play, you can choose chapter select and go to chapter 2, then manually skip back to the beginning, but even that doesn't always work.
+John Doe Wait, you dislike menus? Why? Do you not enjoy being able to select the thing on the disk you want to watch?
John Doe Menus are the best things introduced with DVDs IMO
tbb033 What you don't want freaking _home land security_ letting you know PRICEY IS NOT A VICTIMLESS CRIME, every time you want to watch something? What you a dirty commie?
I'm a 51 year old tech nerd and I have never heard of HD on VHS until now!
I have never heard of HD VHS too!
I think this never came to Brazil.
Nice video.
G Star Yeah, when he said it was a little bit of a break in the space time continuum, I legit thought he was just quipping. But between that and your comment, I’m starting to wonder if D-Theater actually existed before this video was uploaded and wasn’t just the Mandela effect in... effect.
well sir hd vhs invented on 2010 I think
@@king.canute21 According to this video, the decks were available around 2002.
@@teacoffee42 i think the reason it never penetrated the UK market was most likely down to the price and the fact that HD DVD was just around the corner. This format was just pure Yankee exotica for the rich.
Just imagine watching that New York footage in all its high-quality goodness thinking it was from 2013 or thereabouts, and then the Twin Towers show up.
50GB on a storage format from 1998 is quite impressive.
it is! actually even impressive enough 10-15 years after that.
well it's tape... tape drives have been in hundreds of GB for quite some time.. eg 8mm m2 or SDLT 220
Yeah, tape is still the best for archiving, look at Sony's 185 terabyte tape format for example!
JonnyInfinite, HAHAHA
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes...
Wow, I had absolutely no idea this existed. Gotta love when that happens :) Thanks a lot for sharing!
+Lazy Game Reviews Okay, now this damn great! While checking all the updates from my subscriptions I just came from watching your new video to see you comment on this one. Small universe. Blows my mind. (Also, darn, did Techmoan grow this well-known?!)
I thought you would like this sort of channel after your last video when you said you like to take things apart.... then I scrolled down and saw your comment. haha.
+Lazy Game Reviews
Something to look out for on a future episode of LGR Thrifting? :)-
+Lazy Game Reviews Still the only way to see True Lies in HD
Course these things have been ripped and distributed for this very reason many years ago, its how I found out about it.
if only there was a wood grain d vhs
8:13 notice how it says "DVD" in the upper left text, they didn't even bother changing it to VHS.
Well spotted! Are you a "proof reader" perhaps?
great catch! I would have never seen that!
Wich is only SD 480p or 576p in some other pal regions. Altrough it could be 1080p at the available bitrate of 5-6Mbit/s for 120min and it would be 1,5x better quality than the yt videos bitrate of 1080p, but we need other way to have. bluray discs and players.
the power of autism
One thing he missed was it was actually possible to record HD from satellite with DVHS. The Dish Network 5000 had an ATSC modulator, that you could feed to a tuner with a FireWire output, and feed that to a DVHS deck. I have a bunch of movies that I recorded from dish network's HBO feed. Sadly my two DVHS decks are not working, so I can't play play them back.
If only d theater came out just 3 or 4 years earlier than it did, it would actually have some success, at least with videophiles until blu ray and hd dvd came along.
Yes some people have sports recorded on tape as well.
That video of 1993 New York in HD is fascinating, it's like it was recorded yesterday! Having lived through the 90's, you kind of remember things through how you saw them on the TV, blurry or grainy! The high framerate in particular makes the whole thing seem really solid and in the present.
In some alternate dimension D-VHS was so popular that Sony decided to include a D-VHS player into the PS2 instead of DVD.
That is where I belong.
+Classic80sStuff I'd imagine there are still Sega fans that weep whenever the death of the Dreamcast is mentioned.
+Classic80sStuff In that reality the Sega Dreamcast won because of the adoption of D-VHS by SEGA, while Sony lost because of its adoption of CED, the previosly worldwide succesful format, in that reality.
Or even in the PS3 instead of a Blu-Ray drive, in case the thing wasn't already large enough at launch.
Christian Stout Blu-Ray would have likely murdered D-VHS shortly after coming out due to the smaller size an ability to store special features etc.
9:58 just as I thought “man that woman is beautiful!” The guy in the ponytail turns around to confirm my thoughts.
I think it was the only way to archive HD material from US cable or satellite TV back when it was released. It was the VHS format's last stand.
And had D-Theater realeast just 3 or 4 years earlier, D-VHS would still be around well into the HD disc format war, though it would probably still end up getting vanquished in the crosshairs.
Had no idea HD Video appeared on VHS, really interesting
+Blaize
There were also HD tube TVs (at least I read about them once back in the day), which would HD HVS tapes quite well.
+useless1997 I had a Samsung HD CRT TV in the early 2000s. It wasn't much cop though, the tube was poorly made and had very bad geometry. I ended up swapping it for an early LCD model.
For a brief period, around 2007, I had a 36" Sony WEGA HD tube tv. it was wonderful for my new xbox 360, I think it was my only HD source at the time. I still remember the warmth of the colors compared to the affordable LCDs of the time. I also remember trying to move it in with a hand truck. I leaned it back just a little and it began to crush itself. It was well over 100 pounds.
Brad Strawn
Tube displays were so stupidly heavy. I had to move a 20 inch tube display to the trash some years ago and I could barely lift it.
didnt realize that CRTs tubes for you could do HD
i never thought VHS was capable of 1080 resolution
esai gutierrez 720 ..not 1080
didn't the video say 1080i
look at 7:54 on the i robot movie it says HD 1080i
ok ..yes .. just saw it ...So I apologize for it
thats alright
See everyone in 4 years when this gets recommended again
lol this was just recommended to me
i wish we hadthe old algorithm where youtube would recommend me shiti was actually interested in.
Agreed! See ya
Yep
@@doomy08854 yes
I bought one of these in 2004 for a project I was doing for Comcast. I was creating a simulated HD home theater environment that need to play without access to their headend. Their HD cable boxes had firewire data outputs and they didn't encrypt their signal then. I recorded segments to D-VHS and then to my computer for editing and compression as needed. It was clunky, but it worked great. I still have the JVC and a Mitsubishi in storage.
9:38 That's like a 1080i window into 1993.
Tuppoo94 looks so weird seeing the past so sharp it looks new!
agreed
This footage is also in the ending sequence of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. Quite a nice surprise finding this out 17 years after I played it the first time :D
@@MercuriusORG lol I knew the footage looked familiar!
@@MercuriusORG that... It's so cool
Found one of the mistakes Fox made on the back of the box. On the copyright information, it says "This DVD contains copy control technologies that prevent copying". They said DVD instead of D-VHS or D-Theatre.
Sweet Jesus 50gb from something released in the late 90s, something we wouldn’t be able to match until dual layer bd in 06.
Guess there’s a reason they still use magnetic tape to archive large amounts of data even today.
Well we technically had hard drives, which were still quite smaller than a VHS...
Still, very impressive for magnetic media
@@extrahourinthepit in 1998, the highest capacity of a HDD was 47Gb and this was a 5.25" full height HDD which had the dimensions of 83mm x 146.3mm x 203.5 mm. A VHS is smaller than this with 187mm x 102mm x 25mm. This means that the volume of the HDD was about 5.5 times higher than the volume of a VHS. Also the price of the 47 GB monster HDD was about 3000$ which is many times higher than the price of the first D-VHS tapes. A 3.5" HDD is about the same size as a VHS cassette (101.5mm x 146mm x 26.1 mm, so the length is about 22% shorter and all other dimensions are almost the same), but these only had about 20 GB max in 1998.
Today type is still the cheapest format to store large amounts of data. The price of a LTO-7 tape with 6 TB (uncompressed) is about 10$ per TB, which is about half of the price per TB of a HDD. And the highest capacity is actually LTO-8 with 12 TB uncompressed (but they are rather new, so they are still a little more expensive per TB than LTO-7). All LTO tapes have dimensions 102mm x 105.4mm x 21.5mm, which is less than half the volume of a 3.5" HDD. So it can store much more GB per volume than a 3.5" hard disk which currently has 16TB or less.
Because of this and because tapes are probably still more reliable than HDDs when not used often, tape is still the preferred archival media for big corporations. For private people and small business, modern tape drives are simply too expensive (simple internal LTO-7 drive start at about 2200$, LTO-8 at about 2700$). Unfortunately there is no consumer tape drive built anymore since a long tome ago (I think they are not anymore produced since the 2000s).
rfvtgbzhn
Alright, but I’m pretty sure we already had 1000GB HD in 2009, and we sure as hell had no less than 128GB 2.5” HD, so my guess is we must have had something more than 50GB just three years earlier...
@@extrahourinthepit I don't understand to what you refer, the whole video is about D-VHS which was introduced in 1998 and I refer to this except for the parts where I refer to now and the last sentence which is about consumer tape drives are not built "since the 2000s", but I think this is most likely since 2000 or 2001.
The video also refers to 2002 when D-Theater was introduced but it had actually the same capacity on the same tapes as the original D-VHS, it only had a higher data rate (and shorter playtime) to make HD possible.
And I see no significance in "3 years before 2009", which would be in 2006.
rfvtgbzhn have you read the comment we’re replying to
Amazing - I'm from 1975 and think of myself as someone keeping taps on new tech and still somehow this has completely gone under the radar!
Great video !
Anybody else notice the guy checking that girl out? Nearly broke his neck lol
They were all Actors , didn't you recognise any of them ?!?
That guy recognised himself in the original video uploaded on youtube. Go check his comment :D He is 56 years old right now.
Doesn't matter the year that sort of human behavior has always been around. Good thing for us. Hahaha!
@@fanesorin8927 You're trying to troll me into reading way too many comments. I know it.
@@CynHicks it s the most upvoted comment
A few days before this video came out, I was in the local Goodwill store and there was a VHS player there that said HD on it. I had no idea there was an HD VHS format and do not pick up VHS players there unless they are older 70's or early 80's vintage. After viewing this video over the weekend , I high tailed it back to the Goodwill. Predictably, it was gone. Another thing to watch out for now.
16k Laserdisc by 2030. We can only hope.
2030? More like 2040
16mm films were HD years ago. Great watching them outside on the big white garage wall.
@@duanethamm4688 We used to watch TURN SIGNALS when I was a boy now theres some hd!
@TrashPanda Raccoon Maybe 32K VHS MAN!!!!! Ha Ha
@@electrictroy2010 VHS is analog too, but as we see here, someone did something about that
I find this fascinating, and I would totally go full on HD vhs if it got back. I love the format and the art and how it felt.
This is mind blowing, I had no idea this existed. Shame it never caught on, I kind of like the idea of an HD video tape.
50GB? Thats amazing!
yep the huge recording surface of VHS tape is definitely under-utilised by only recording analog signals to it. Note that a MiniDV cassette from the same era stored 15GB and it was a tiny fraction of the size.
Not to mention that computer tape backup with similar capacities was a thing, tape being cheaper than hard drive for the same capacity, the only downside is it is not random access.
The real question is, can it run GTA5?
+Autotrope These days, computer backup to tape is about 2TB per cassette, with support for robots that change tapes automatically between a stack of tape drives and a much larger library of tapes, which are then moved to a fireproof vault on a more human work schedule. Disk backups are fine for "near line" quick access backups, but tapes remain king for media that can be physically protected from both physical and virus/hacking/software damage by storing it away from the electronics. Tapes tend to endure rougher handling during transport and storage than most other formats. Some solid state formats could compete if you could trust the ability to get readback support 10 to 50 years into the future rather than a useless ("new blank disc within 1 year of purchase") blather with no real specs as to where your precious data is or the quality and endurance of the actual storage chips.
Note that tape is still used today. A friend of mine works in a datacenter, they make server backups on tape, each tape can maake around 12/20TB and in controlled condiction it can be stored for 60+ years
This is unbelievable! How has this slipped under my radar for all these years! The quality of that 1993 footage is amazing!
Here in the US I used to pick up a magazine called "Widescreen Review". Some time in the late 90s or early 2000s every issue was filled with D-VHS articles and ads. I imagine the editor was really excited about it. It seemed that the big magazines didn't report on it too much. WR is now a web magazine and you can get old issues there.
The wonders of the lost formats never cease to amaze.
Somewhere there's a parallel universe where D VHS won the format war.
+s0nnyburnett Or DVD didn't go CD size but the Laserdisk route and had HD since start, with a jumbo 30cm disk
+s0nnyburnett Or everything went to small memory cards and forget having a tape or disc.
Meeker Extreme
...This would be really convenient!....
But heck the spinning disk is so much cooler! If I could post here my PC's DVD (ye I'm too poor to BluRay) drive, you would agree, and wonder why didn't manufacturers do it more.
I'm planning on adding timed strobe lighting to it to make the disk appear stopped or spinning really slowly.
Then there must also be a parallel universe where HD-Betamax exists.
Actualy there was made hd laserdisc player in early 90s it's hivision muse player
this dvhs has better quality than the most TH-cam videos on here.
necroreply, but moreso as of late. TH-cam has bunged their 4k system [videos often end up stuck at 360p] so a lot of content creators have gone back to 'upload at 1080p' which is now the this new muddy 'upload mode'.
TH-cam videos are highly compressed and are made by vloggers with highly varying levels of production equipment and skill after all! :)
@@TassieLorenzo yeah it sucks to see channels with millions of subs as well as multiple people that work on it, who absolutely suck at the way they record and all... Then there's some channels who are operated by single people that is some of the highest quality material I've ever seen.
@@TassieLorenzo I just upscale my 480p webcam, adjust the pixelisation to compensate and... bingo. xD (no crappy compression). I use a 1080p camcorder too, and one that does 1440x1080p (4:3).
True and bru rays
Great video :)
I didn't know about this format, it's very strange seeing footage from 1993 looking that sharp and clear
why? there’s 4K remasters of way older films
@@dylanjordan4747 Films aren't just normal everyday life. This was New York as it was with normal people going about their business
The twin towers, giant neon advertisements featuring Joe Camel, big hair, and boxy Chevy Caprice taxicabs everywhere. I miss the early 90's!
Never forget
Early 90’s new york was hell
@@adorabasilwinterpock6035 so it's to update it and add BLM-ers :)
@@snarkylive I mean what I mean, read the text
Full fitting clothing too.
Seeing 1080i footage of 1993 is INSANE to me, almost like it's from a current movie that's portraying 1993. Totally wild.
@@truesoundchrisyeah, but even videotape as far back as the 1950s could reasonably look good as high as 1440p60 if the people behind the scanning process were competent, just look at the remastered videos of "A Kind Of Magic" and "Star Fleet (X-Bomber)" done by James Wong, and "Bohemian Rhapsody" remastered by Chief Mouse, uploaded by Simon Christensen
I'd never even heard of this format. The picture quality is amazing
Developing old videos into HD clips is an appreciable invention that truly preserves our history.
VHS? Above 480I?
Sounds like pure heresy to me.
@knowledge share The joke being that standard VHS quality is 480i. r/whoosh
We have found a witch. May we burn her?
While the joke is obvious, to get real, though the old NTSC output equates to 480i; it's about 400-420 for SVHS and 240 at its very best for VHS.
@@BilisNegra No, 480i isn't 480p. 480p (or 480 Progressive Scan) is a no-cheats vertical resolution of 480 pixels, 480i (480 Interlaced) is two interlaced (alternating) fields of 240 vertical lines (IE a vertical resolution of 240 vertical lines) alternated so fast as to make it look like 29.97 complete 480-line frames a second. VCR's are, on composite, stuck with NTSC 480i. Meanwhile, SVHS is 840i as it's 420 vertical lines per field in an interlaced fashion, which technically makes it interlaced HD.
@@SarahMaywalt I am the pope and I approve
A couple of notes:
-DVHS did see a PAL region release, JVC built the HM-DR10000 for the UK market, but alas no D-Theater support.
-The DVHS decks today are prized more by folks doing VHS to DVD transfers since this machine has a TBC and DNR system (Digipure) for analog tape playback.
-External MPEG2 encoder/decoders connected to these via firewire to add DVI output, naturally with HDCP enabled with D-Theater tapes. You can also playback and record on your PC via firewire, drivers are included with WIndows and OS X.
-My DVHS deck came with a giant box full of movies recorded off of premium movie channels (HBO, Showtime, etc) via a digital cable box with Firewire output. Oddly they are not copy protected despite cable boxes claiming to do just that. I had all the Star Wars movies on HD well before they came out on BluRay... except I had to rewind afterwards!
+NJRoadfan cool i want one now to back up some movies that only came out on vhs
+NJRoadfan
I think the cable companies were less stringent with copy protection back then. I had a friend who in the early 2000s could record transport streams for most of his cable channels onto his computer through the firewire port on his box even though he wasn't supposed to.
You could become a top tech tv presenter. I enjoy the way you explain the old and new technology and history behind it.
I was thinking the same thing when I was watching the video.
28th like
TH-cam > TV
TV is dead.
It took me many years but here it is. I've ALWAYS wanted to know if a VHS was capable of having 720p/1080p quality and I can't believe how great it looks! We understand the limitations now, but I never knew there was a brief period in time where you could see a FullHD film in VHS!. This is magnificent stuff. Thank you.
I'll have to look into this when I get a chance, but 720p (DVD) and 1080p (Blu ray) on a VHS tape? well imagine video game movies having the quality of a Blu ray or DVD but on a VHS tape.
Your videos are comfort food to me, and I only found you a few years ago.
the quality those tapes were capable of were simply amazing, honestly I was never aware of this format, pretty much as soon as DVD came out that's pretty much what my family accepted even though we still have our old VHS tapes
This is amazing. I had no idea the format existed. I figured DVD was the successor to VHS. Clearly Ive lived under a rock in the last 20 years..
Oh, was it?
And both of them were the successor to LaserDisc which came before them and CDs. Video-CD had no chance in the US market since it required multiple discs for every movie (2 or 3).
VCD never stood a chance in the U.S. market, all right! But they're *BIG* here in Asia! And that is why they're popular here, besides the fact it's used here for Karaoke.
Yep
Among retro gamers the TG-16 had more common knowledge, Even if they had never owned one, they at least have heard of it, On the other hand I never heard of DVHS format to I saw this video
My mother in law (75) still records and watches on VHS. She's used to that. But she does it on a 1920x1080 modern IPS LCD TV. She refusus to use a HDD connected to the TV to record shows. Too complicated ;)
Sorry if that hurts you but can you do me a favor ?? When your MIL passes away, can you contact me & sell your VHS player ?? It's obsolete in India but I still miss watching movies in VCPs.. I mean we know the technology but there's always been a perception that our content is enclosed in a black cassette which looks similar to the top or bottom plate of small die set, that can be accessed when it's inserted inside a player & connected to the TV...
😆😆
@@ratha_bhabatosh Jesus Christ man
@@IndependentWhistleblower 😂😂😂😂😂
Modern society has tried to make me believe that HD in the early 90's was just a dream I had. Thank you for this. I knew it was not a dream.
CRT Monitors could do higher Res even back then like 2048*1536
Not to mention celluloid film has been able to capture 4K level quality for decades
Fascinating! D-VHS was completely unknown to me. You have gained a subscriber
same here x 2.
me three , I was already subscribed but I do not remember DVHS , at the time DVDs was all the rage and the PS2
Yep same here.
Me four.
Back in 2009 I bought the same model of JVC DVHS player used on eBay because it is HD capable. I rarely use it, but it’s a cool legacy device to have in the home theater setup. I still have a few VHS movies in my collection and some home movies.
@@Inactiveprobably some of D-VHS are also advanced VHS playback devices with highest analog quality available from VHS
I love how this got recommended to me now 4 years later lol
Yep. Oh TH-cam algorhithm... Speakin of VHS, I sure don't miss having my shelfes full of them...
Yup but I’m happy with this recommendation
I worked at Circuit City in the early 2000s and we had a D-VHS player. There was also a Dish Network Satellite receiver with a D-VHS recorder built in, which I ended up with somehow and a copy of Ice Age on DVHS that I sold many, many years ago on ebay. Good stuff!
One of the most interesting TH-cam videos I have seen in a long while.
I agree
and I agree with both.
+Cyphrinfinity
Eh? We don't make two different points!
11 1
01 0
10 0
00 0
+Peter Lamont
You what?
The PS2 was also responsible for the proliferation of DVD.
It was instrumental, as was the PS3 in the proliferation of Blu-Ray.
+KasHCubeD ps2 most reliable dvd player ever ps3 most reliable blu ray player still got both my first machines although I don't use them for dvd or watching blu ray anymore they still work perfectly when I game on them.
Living here in the US my entire life, I have no idea that I've never heard of this format!? Thanks so much for this information!👍
9:59 that guy with the ponytail was thinking the same thing I am thinking in 2020....... 27 years later
Because pretty woman is out of time!
Holy shit, that demo tape has extremely rare footage of New York's original World Trade Center in High Definition!!
I was 11 years old when that HDTV recording was made... It's so weird...
***** Where can I find it?
It was probably taken from 35mm and there's likely plenty of that. Even shows like Friends and Seinfeld were filmed on 35mm and are available in 1080p today.
PurpleSfinx
The frame rate and fully open shutter angle is not quite what you'd expect out of a film.
American Psycho
Watching 1993 footage in HD is incredible. like really, out of this world :O
That looked incredible. I never heard of this format, either. Thank you for sharing.
Great look back. I still have the DH40000U which worked quite well. I remember being amazed by the video and sound quality of HD movies. Thanks.
As soon as you mentioned the marketing tactics used to prevent D-Theatre sales, I thought about what Sony did with the PS2. Glad you mentioned they overstated the specs, still a grudge I haven't overcome as a Sega fan.
+Jake Hancke yep, I'm not really over it. The Dreamcast was the last console I really enjoyed.
+Techmoan #dreamcastneverdies I have a feeling something as revolutionary, inspiring and fun is on its way, by who? I can't say...
Mind = blown... HD on VHS? Tape?? You learn something new every day.
Very interesting video, Matt! Thanks for that. :)
+Ed Frankes There are even tapes with capacities over 100 Terabyte...
+Thies B. (FreeMusicTV) Yes, after thinking about it all it was less of a surprise. My reaction was kind of "what first came to mind". ;-) Non the less, a lot of younger people will doubt that this is all treu. :D
Still have a JVC HM-DH5U in mint condition along with an assortment of titles. Long time since i watched anything on it.
year late, but if you still have it, the prices for them are insane. you're basically sitting on retirement money at this point, lol.
When you showed the 90's on HD i was literally blown away and felt nostalgic... The old cars and everything... I wish I could go back
Another stunningly well investigated Video. Wow.
Spaghetti
Actually, just go to a movie theatre and watch a movie from the 90s, 80s, 70s... shot on film, very high resolution. "Saturday Night Fever" is late 70s New York in HD.
The surreal part is that there was a digital HD recording for mass market home use between DVD and Blu-ray.
Mantis128 Hell yeah, makes me want to watch 90s porn in Hd. Need that crisp Bush!
@@IPPoop 90s bushes? Man you're 2 decades too late. :D
Never watched seinfeld? All high def
Movies have been filmed in high resolutions for decades. Dunno what you're talking about.
On friday nites, nothing beats that feeling of seeing the last vhs movie on the shelf behind the dozen other cover art boxes of same movie of something newly released you and the family been dying to see.
I have watched this video about 4 times, still in 2020 one of my favourite Techmoan vids, cheers Matt.
The problem was that most of the early plasmas sold were in fact not even 720p but 480p, sold as "HD Ready". The real HD ones were bloody expensive.
But back in the age a DVD in a 480p plasma TV looked very good.
I used a 720p plasma for a few years. It blew away lcds at the time. I've always felt that the move to lcd set tvs back 5 years.
+Brad Strawn didn't plasmas have burn in issues?
they did, but if you were aware of it then it wasn't a problem. mine also had this function that helped to remove burned in images.
I hope you can help, but why buy an HD ready tv, when you can buy a Full HD-TV? Even if the resolution was great via DVD. Anyone?
Resty Mervin Ponio Back in 2005~2006 FullHD TV's where super expensive.
I never knew anything like this ever existed. Very Interested Video. I really enjoy your content.
I still watch the majority of my movies on dvd, i love the format and i love collecting movies.
Very interesting. I never knew this format existed.
Thank you for making this.
I had the Dish Network JVC HM DSR100U digital vhs (D-VHS) recorder. Loved it! To avoid buying the expensive D-vhs blank tapes, I would simply drill a hole in the bottom shell of a regular or S-vhs tape to fool the machine to record in D-vhs format. I could then get 2 full length movies on each tape in the LP 4 hour mode. Of course it only 480p resolution, but as good as Dvds that were just coming out. Since I was recording Club Dance TNN shows I participated in, I was able to then output to a DVD recorder for digital archiving, then finally to avi 420p. which to this day, still have as video files backed up to HDs. Even on my 64GB SD card in my phone.
Niiiice:).
This guy really goes all out on his videos. I really love learning about these dead formats I've never heard of before, even this one, which came and went when I was alive, unlike beta max or something. Thank you tech moan for putting these vids out, I really enjoy them. I'm subbed on all my channels!
As someone who lived through this day and age, it’s nice to have the memories come back to me
New to your channel (friend recommended it) and I know this is an older upload but I enjoyed it. I genuinely was not aware of the DTheatre format (I was a bit of a tech Luddite for a long time) so this was new to me. I’m looking forward to further exploring your channel!
ITV may still use HD VHS. I work for Royal Mail and a couple of years ago there was a special delivery item for ITV, the packaging was undone and it was HD video tapes.
Was it VHS, or was it Betacam, which is still popular in the industry?
Wow, I never heard of this. It's a shame this never took off, we could have been watching HD movies a long time ago!
BetaMax,.. because they were HD before HD knew what it was to be HD.
Laserdisk also came out with a HD laserdisk format, i think that also flopped.
I know someone who has 3 of these DVHS machines. And he still uses them quite a bit although the last time I was over at his home, was two years ago.
As far as the gap in HD formats, I remember that a lot of electronic companies were pushing DVD "upscalers" to tide people over. And then when HD-DVD and Blueray came out, the sales were disappointing because they found that many consumers were satisfied with the upscaler models they had already purchased and didn't want to purchase a new player.
I had that VCR here in the US. I bought it used, and it worked great. I think I had a Sanyo receiver to decode the over the air HD signal. But more importantly, if I recall correctly, I could and did modify standard VHS tapes to use in it recording in HD. But at the time, I bought it mainly for recording Nascar races, only Nascar was one of those who employs any and all copy protection methods. It would record the channel right up until they cut to the network feed, and then nothing. So i sold it on ebay because almost nothing was in HD back then except the Nascar races.
I had no idea there were HD VHS!!! Wow!
This really is quality youtube at its best
It's still nice to have a recorder for recording broadcasts onto physical media.
Last year i finally bought a 4k smart TV. it's only around 43 inches but honestly it was a great investment. Only cost me $250 brand new including shipping. It initially defaulted to 30HZ every time I turned it on. but with a bit of tweaking I got it to run games at 60hz 4k. Honestly I think we're in the golden years of affordable displays, I can't see this getting any better.
Now all I have to do is get a passable speaker setup.
Looks amazing! Can't believe a VHS can be that good.
Really interesting video! 1080i HD videotapes are still in daily use, not VHS but Digibeta which is used in broadcast. While TV stations' playout is all server-based these days and file delivery is becoming more and more common, many shows are still delivered on tape and most archives are tape-based. Had no idea there was ever a consumer VHS HD format, though!
I lived in Japan in the 90's as an exchange student so had seen minidisc before (still use my MZ-RH1) so drifted into your channel. I must say I enjoy the products you review and your detailed knowledge of them. If we are going to talk about HD formats try recordable BluRay, the only drawback I found was that the discs cost AU$15 each and took 24 hours to burn.
2:26 holy crap! I think we had that same model rear projection tv!!! I think it was about 9 or 12 years old when the convergence kicked the bucket and it started looking like stuff you would wear the red/cyan 3d glasses for. tried to fix it twice with no success, sold it for cheap to a guy on craigslist who had a smaller version of the same model, to use the projectors to replace his. Thing was heavier than a truck full of rocks and we had to get it down stairs form the second floor. it was a 3 man team effort, and it barely fit through the staircase....I have no idea how we got it up there in the first place lol
FAAAACK now I'm going to start collecting HD VHS players and tapes!!! I just bought an HD-DVD player 3 days ago and now you show me this....
I feel your pain.
There comes a time when you simply have to admit you can't have it all...sadly. My computer collection precludes me from collecting any of this stuff...lest I just jump in and go full hoarder mode.
One thing I did get was a VCR again. This has a very practical use though, as nothing else has really replaced it due to the heavy regulation of the industry. So I can definitely justify having one for very practical reasons. They are so dirt cheap now too! I got it in box, new for 8$ at a thrift store.
I also had to get the entire rocky series on VHS...no other way to watch it imo...and the honeymooners.
But why? Blu ray is so good, cheap..
If I can record live TV on a pet rock and then remove the media and operate it on any rock regardless of what happens to the original rock...I'd buy it, but it had better have some selling features superior to VHS, or HD-VHS. BTW, I would gather that any semi-modern VHS tape can be used with an HD-VHS. You can see the quality of the tape on VHS by looking at them. They aren't just cheapo FEO2 with barely if any teflon. They have the look more of a floppy disk...which is a high quality dense recording media. Worth a try if you have an HD-VHS machine...
@ John, because of the fact blu-ray is so in demand, HD dvd players can be had nearly free/very cheap now. I got a portable SD-DVD player for a mere 7$ with every possible attachment included. Which is about the price of a few BDR discs...for a complete player etc. Not to mention DVDRs are are around 10 cents now. If you are living obsolete, you have hoards of money leftover regardless of your income level...and you won't notice that money is burning a hole in your pocket at a high income. Anyway, some people collect these things for the novelty/ collector value they will have in the future.
10:27 Whoa, the D-VHS looks as good as Blu-ray.
Not when compared side by side with 1080p blu-ray. It looks very good though.
Jarrah White not as good as Ultra Blu Ray 4k
Jarrah White while it does look like great quality video, once I saw the cars I noticed that the frame rate was not so good.
HOPELESS ENTERTAINMENT Well no shit, it supports a maximum of 1080i and was made at a time when 4k was still being developed.
+カイエン 〔・0・〕 《KUYAN》 You realize it runs at 30 fps like almost all commercial video? Videos are not games, what you are seeing are deinterlacing artefacts, it would look normal on a HD CRT.
Thank you for making this great, and informational content :) RIP D Theater.
This gets a mention in "We Bought HD Movies on Cassette Tape and They're AMAZING!" on "Linus Tech Tips"
Wow! Very impressive for the time! I didn't even realize that format was out back then.
HD on VHS, mind......blown!
great video.
I watched the Batman movie with Danny devito as penguin on vhs with my grandma's 4k tv.
That sounds terrible man
Its amazing how much information can still be thrown onto magnetic tape when its digital formatted.
Great video. It's a common problem that towards the end of VHS's existence, the features on offer and chipsets used were immensely more sophisticated, yet at the same time the mechanisms were really poor: flimsy chassis, low component count in the tape path (many had no impedance rollers, even the drum roller arms and their assemblies seemed to be made of tin); carriage made of bendy tin, and plastic gears that cracked after loading and unloading a dozen times. This is because to keep costs low, all the big names seemed to outsource mechanisms to Funai, makers of unrepairable junk.
Interesting. So can I say that, more or less, the VHS here is used as a Data Tape to store Digital Files, and that the VHS player is acting like a digital tape device with some embedded audio/video decoding? :-)
+Tziu Ricky yep
D-vhs never caught on but a lot of camcorder formats recorded digitally to magnetic tapes did. Mini DV and Digital 8 were two of the most common. I never saw the point in having something technically digital but having pretty much all the drawbacks of analog tape like linear access only, fast forwarding and rewinding.
So I mainly stayed with video Hi8 which is analog but the (NTSC) tapes gave you 2 hours in SP. Mini DV and D8 usually had 60 min in SP, 90 if you used LP.
I have a lot of family movies on Hi8 and Digital 8 format. I wonder if D-VHS would be a good way to store them for longevity. I trust magnetic tape more than harddrives for storage. Any opinions about this ?
Specifically, it's storing an MPEG-II stream, which is also supported by standard on the iLinkmport
*****
Unfortuantely, with so little use of D-VHS, it's likely hard to know whether those digital tapes will hold up better than the master sources over time. I like to think of the original tapes as the master, period. Any other copy is simply a back up.
The thing is, there's far less support and equipment available new to copy stuff to high quality tapes. You'd likely have to go to a conversion house or a local cable tv studio. Whereas hard drives today have huge capacity and there's a lot software out there to capture video to computer. And automated back up or cloud storage is more popular.
Great video. I loved this format at the time. At one time I had 5 D-VHS machines. You could record through firewire off charter in HD with absolutely no copy protection whatsoever so was able to get HD recordings of some titles years before regular release. You could also record about 7 movies on a regular size tape in DVD quality through s-video using LS3 mode. As you mentioned though they did tend to be unreliable over time-the HD modules would go bad making them only useful as a regular(non digital)VHS machine. I currently still have a HM-DM5U which has the HDMI but mine will not play DTHEATER through HDMI due to copy protection conflict with my current TV so have to use component for those. Great quality though even today.
Wow! I never knew my childhood TV was considered high definition. It's was the same one you showed a picture of!