Ahhh which is better DVD or VHS. That depends on who you are!
Mar 25 '01
The Bottom Line You should make a decison on what features are the most important to you, and the money you want to spend!
Although DVD has a lot better sound and video quality, both DVD and VHS have their own sets of advantages and disadvantages.
I hope that this essay will help to point out the good and bad points to both DVD and VHS formats.
First off lets look at the VHS format.
The first VHS systems were big, and heavy. They had a spring top loading drawer that you put the tape in.
One of the advantages of VHS is that all of them (with the exception of units that are for playback only) can record programs broadcasted on television. This is great for people who are always on the run. As long as you now how to, or least are able to learn how to, use the timed record feature, then you can record something without even having to be home. The ability to record is also great if you have HBO, or other movie channels, as you will be able to get a lot of films on tape.
The medium (cassettes) that you use for this are cheap, and readily available. You need to be careful what you buy though. If you have a hi-hi VCR and you want what you are recording to be in stereo, then make sure you buy a hi-fi capable cassette. Also, make sure the record length of the cassette matches that of the length, and record speed that you plan to use.
Although VHS systems (also called VCRs) are cheap, they do have their fare share of disadvantages. For on thing, the video and quality isn’t as good. This is due to the fact that the signal, is produced by the tape being “read” by the tape rubbing up against the audio and video heads (the things that read the film) and then having the signal displayed onto your television set.. The problem is that if ANYTHING is on the surface of the film, then it will effect video and/or video quality.
Also another major disadvantage of VHS is tape wear. The minor friction and stretching of the film up against the heads of the VCR will, over time, start to wear the film. Film wear can severely effect the video, and usually to a lesser extent, the audio.
Also, you have to wait for a tape to re-wind, or fast-forward to get to certain parts of a movie, or show. Also you have to rewind the entire tape when you are done watching it. This not only causes wear on the tape, but also on the VCR itself. The constant fast-forwarding and re-winding of tapes, does shorten the life of your VCR. If you buy a VCR, I HIGHLY recommend you buy a tape re-winder.
Now let us move on to examine DVD.
DVD was insanely expensive when it first came out. Those of you who said, “give this a year or two, and the price will drop like a rock”, were correct. You can now go and buy a decent DVD player for less than 200 dollars.
DVDs main advantage is that the video and audio quality is MUCH better than VHS. The audio is actually CD-quality, the video is almost always crystal clear, with no drop outs or grain (at least on most DVDs anyways) and is just plain amazing.
Another advantage of DVD over VHS is special features. A lot of DVDs have the making of features, that show you how they made the film, giving behind the scenes video, and other such things. A lot of DVDs also feature director, producer, and even crew commentary. Some of the time, these commentary features actually have the movie going while commentary about certain scenes is given.
Other features may include a music video from the sound track to the film, trailers, alternative endings, cast bios, storyboards, production notes, and other things.
The one special feature that is on almost ever DVD disc are interactive menus, these allow you to set certain options (which I will tell you about in a little while) and skip to certain scenes.
Other advantages include the fact that you don’t need to sit while to tape rewinds, you can just tell the DVD player to go back to the certain scene you want to go to, or just stop the DVD, put it in later, and it is already back to the beginning, no rewinding needed!
Another advantage is the fact that you can set up different types of options. Sometimes some DVD discs allow you to hear the soundtracks, and sometimes even what the actors are saying in different languages. You usually can at least set the subtitles to be in a selection of different languages.
Also DVDs don’t wear from the heads as the data is read by a laser, in which noting other than the motor mechanism that holds the disc, actually comes in physical contact, with the disc. This is good thing as if you don’t drop or do anything else to scratch your DVDs, and as long as you keep them dust free, you won’t have to worry about “wear” on your DVDs.
Also, DVD movies often are done in a widescreen format. Widescreen means the picture is in a strip on your TV set. Although less of the screen is used (unless you own a widescreen set) you get to see more details. When they transfer a video from the theater, and modify it to fit your screen some details are chopped off, when they crop the image. Widescreen eliminates this problem. However, widescreen isn’t for everyone. Thankfully for those who do not like widescreen, some DVDs aren’t in widescreen, or give you the option of which viewing format you want to watch it in.
However, DVD movies are more expensive than VHS, sometimes you can expect to pay over ten dollars more for the DVD over the VHS version. It is rare however, to pay that much more.
The other disadvantage of DVD is that you can’t record to them, so if you want to tape your favorite shows, then you need a VCR.
Overall I would recommend a VCR if you:
A. Have an older TV set, with no RCA inputs.
B. Don’t really care all that much about special features, or video/audio quality.
C. You just want to record TV shows
D. You can’t afford a DVD player.
I would recommend a DVD player if you:
A. Have a brand new television set, with all the latest input types.
B. Are VERY concerned about video/audio quality.
C. Want all the extras that come with a DVD over a VHS edition of a film
D. You don’t mind paying for the extras mentioned in letter C.
Overall, you should study your situation, how much money you would or wouldn’t mind spending, to decide which is right for you!
Overall though, I like DVD better, as when I actually BUY a movie, I want to have the most enjoyable experience possible, which is what DVD provides!
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jschmalzried
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Member: Justin Schmalzried
Location: Huntsville, AL
Reviews written: 79
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