I just read an article about the D-VHS (http://www.uemedia.com/CPC/article_4468.shtml) format. They're calling it the perfect format for HD, and apparently it has a capacity of 44gb.. but it's a cassette tape! This is what I don't understand. The whole reason DVD is viewed as better quality than VHS is because there's no loss of quality after several views, and digital is simply a better way to store data. So why go back to the drawing board with VHS? Why not improve the DVD format?

I'm interested to hear other people's thoughts on this format. I don't think it's extremely new, but now Artisan is jumping on the bandwagon.

Alex,

D-VHS is existing longer indeed and has gained much more
support over the last 6 months. Why did they introduce another
tape based format? Well, to make money ofcourse.

It has a much better resolution and other things so for that
it currently beats DVD if you have the equipment to take benefit
of the increased resolution etc. You will need a HDTV which
for example almost no-one has here in Holland.

Yes, they are also working on a HD-DVD format, see this site (http://www.dvdsite.org/)
for more information.

D-VHS has actually been around for some time. It was introduced about the same time as mini DV. You never heard off it until recently, because, it was relatively more expensive and it didn't have a real need in the marketplace, yet. But now, with HD looming on the horizon, the need for it is becoming clear. Tape is just too affordable to go away.

The problems you associate with VHS, poor picture quality, reduced resolution and poor archival qualities, are the result of the analog tape formulation. When technology improved tape formulations, much of it could not be applied to VHS and maintain compatibility with early models. Remember VHS was state of the art when it was introduced in the '70's.

Jeff,

I still remmember the day my dad walked in with our first Sony Betamax!

Zac

This is a quote from an earlier and much longer thread I won a RCA VHS VCR in 1977. It retailed for well over $1,000 ($1,299?) and had to weigh between 50 and 75 pounds. The longest tape was an hour (almost impossible to find) and cost $30. Nothing flimsy about that beast. You could have used it for a boat anchor.

Jeff



Ah, those were the days. The reason VHS beat Beta was it was the first to come up with the 2 hour tape.

But you can also start to see why tape will survive in the home market. People want to be able to record at home, a 2 hour record time is necessary and compactness and convenience for storage is critical. To equal the data of 1 D-VHS is about 8 DVD-R's. Not very compact or convenient for storage.

Just because the tape is in a VHS shell doesn't mean it's VHS tape. JVC's D-9 (the format formerly known as Digital-S) uses VHS-size tape but it's digital.
I read someplace that JVC gets a royalty off every VHS cassette sold, no matter whose tape is in it...so it is in their interest to perpetuate the cassette. I also read the same thing about Sony and Betacam cassettes. That may or may not be true...but it would explain why JVC came out with a big clunky D-9 format when Panasonic was making smaller, more elegant size tapes and cameras.

I believe the other problem with D-VHS was copyrights. The industry certainly did not want a way to make perfect copies.

Originally, that was a concern, because anti copying technology hadn't caught up with the digital era. Couple that with the immediate success (given a reasonable price) it would have seen with the VHS label, in the consumer marketplace.

JVC does indeed receive a royalty on every legitimate tape sold with the VHS mark. Counterfeit tapes (shells) from China are said to have a huge impact on the low end consumer market.

Bill, I believe the patent on vhs has expired.
I think the patent on CDs has expired too.

JVC is pushing this VTR for use in HD projects since it accepts data from several HD sources and they hope it can be used as a new way view HD daileys, the newer versions also accept DTS audio tracks.

Their newly announced consumer and so called pro HD cams are also desinged to work with it to. Transfer directly from camera to VTR via firewire (Mpeg2 streaming).

D-VHS + HD camcorder + HD capable Home theater = status cam.
Now you can bore your friends and family with hours of junior messing his diapers and burping up breakfast, all in HD!!!!
It's just too much babs, really just tooooo much!!!
hehehe.

VHS is a trademark and as such does not expire. If you want to use the VHS logo etc. you have to pay the licensing fee. This applies to every manufacture or bulk loader of tapes. JVC has deatails on the program here (http://www.jvc-vhs.com/about.htm).

Jeff, okay. But I thought the actual patent on the vhs format had expired. Oh well, royalties for DVDs (commercial) went up as of Jan 1 2003.

I think patents run 17 years, but their are exceptions. But the VHS designation, text style etc. are part of the trademark. It cannot appear on the cassette or packaging without JVC's permission and that costs bucks. The counterfeiters in Asia (mostly China) do big business in fake VHS tapes. It is not as big a problem in the US as it recently was, but worldwide causes huge losses.

Joe has his description of the whole thing pretty close.

Hollywood loves D-VHS. It is secure and compatible. DVD is neither. Also D-VHS easily holds long movies at 28Mb good enough for true HD.

Yes, Hollywood is a huge user of D-VHS. It is the only electronic digital process they use to approve daily shooting.

The HD camcorder you speak of on this forum is the camcorder for those who use D-VHS in their homes.

D-VHS from other vendors are pure bit-buckets for MPEG-2-TS. The JVC, however, includes an ATSC decoder.

But I'm confused about the encoder. The 30000 manual clealy states that prior to recording you can select HS (28.2Mbps), STD (14.1Mbps), or LS3 (7Mbps). That certainly suggests that recordings can be made at 28.2Mbps. Is this correct?

Of course, the recordings will be SD because there is no analog source of HD. Correct?

At 28.2Mbps, dual head-pairs heads are used to write two tracks to tape. Am I correct that dual 14.1Mbps MPEG-2 encorders are used to feed the dual head-pairs?

But what's not clear is how an image is split between two encoders. Is it by odd and even lines?

In spite of my humor, I'm pretty impressed with what JVC is trying to do. Their VTR is expensive by consumer standards, but very affordable by Pro standards. Remember, It's still possible to make a great movie with a 16mm camera and a film cutting board.
So, this camera and a couple of VTRs? Old fashioned A/B editing?
hehehe.
It's about time someone pushed the market past DV25. With low end HD TV sets starting to drop below 1K, it won't be too many years till a demand for more HD content increases enough to justify all of this.

It's a start at least.

The first HD images I ever saw were about 8 years ago courtesy of JVC. The JVC camera was about $60,000 which was cheap by HD standards. They called it the KH-100U, "the industry's first affordable HDTV camera." The recorder was separate and powered by electricity so it wasn't really portable. They called that the SR-W320U. It could also play VHS and S-VHS along with the odd-ball W-VHS format. Everything was analog. I've still got the literature for all this stuff.