OT: Where do you buy your VHS tapes?

Randy Brown wrote on 1/16/2003, 9:00 AM
Good morning all,
I recently bought a consumer level Panasonic VHS (w/DVD player) deck for about $200 in hopes it would copy better quality tapes than my old deck. I can't tell a difference so I'm wondering if it's due to the tapes I'm buying (I've been buying TDK's "extra high grade" at our local Wal-Mart) or if I am just going to have to buy a pro level deck.
TIA,
Randy

Comments

craftech wrote on 1/16/2003, 10:18 AM
It's not the tape. The quality of VHS units has gone steadily down in the past few years. Even for the so-called pro units. I would stick with Walmart because they give you a 90-day return policy unlike the so-called trade dealers.
I currently have mostly older units which I am happy with. I recently bought a JVC SR-V10u which is a so-called Professional unit. It had a horrible picture. I returned it for an exact replacement and the replacement is much better. It ran around $224 from Neemanmedia.com I needed the S-Video ins and outs or I would have gone back and forth to Walmart until I found one which I liked.

What exactly is wrong with your old one?

John
Randy Brown wrote on 1/16/2003, 1:01 PM
Hey John,
>What exactly is wrong with your old one?<

Well it's not only consumer but a cheap consumer; I bought it for the kids thinking I would get a good one later. I saw this Panasonic on sale and figured it would be a good one but didn't notice at the time that the S-video out was for DVD only. I remember seeing an ad in Videomaker magazine for a cable that supposedly converts RCA composite to S-video and vice-versa; anyone know if this actually works well ( ie actually sends a better picture from the S-video plug to the RcA plug)
Thanks again John,
Randy
snicholshms wrote on 1/16/2003, 1:17 PM
I buy the TDK E-HG "Ultimate Performance" T-120 "Extra High Grade" tapes at Costco for about $1.35 each in bulk. And get the best recording results by sending the signal into the VHS deck via S-VHS cable.

About seven months ago I bought the JVC Model#HR-S29U at Costco for about $80.00. It claimed that you could record VHS in "Super VHS ET" at a higher resolution than standard VHS. BUT the tapes recorded with "Super VHS ET" ONLY play in other VHS decks with this feature. They don't play AT ALL in decks that don't have it. Found out the hard way from a customer! So beware of "enhanced" VHS VCR claims.

VHS is VHS and as you know, most people can't see much difference on regular TVs. VHS looks terrible on the newer HiDef TVs...bad enough to never want to watch VHS again.