Betamax. Talk to an afficionado and you’ll get a whole list of reasons why it was better. VHS supporters disagree – fairly comprehensive point-counterpoint presents both opinions.
With technology zooming ahead at such breakneck speed, many youngsters today wouldn’t even relate to this Dilbert cartoon:
With both VHS and Betamax virtually obsolete for future production, the debate is more or less moot – but I still have 162 VHS tapes on my shelf, waiting to be ripped to AVI or replaced with DVD’s.
“Why don’t you switch to Blu-Ray,” I hear someone in the background sniggering? Basically for the same reason I don’t replace my PC with a Mac – it’s no longer substantially better, just different – and a whole lot more expensive. I’ve seen lots of videos on my son’s HD/Blu-Ray set. Yeah, they’re pretty nice. But when I watch movies at home on my own equipment, I don’t feel deprived. When my DVD player goes belly-up, I’ll most likely buy a Blu-Ray capable box, but then I’ll have to get a higher-resolution screen, and I can’t see shelling out the extra money until it’s absolutely necessary.
The Old Wolf has spoken.
Playing in the World Game 
I swear, the majority of movie watchers wouldn’t know the difference between a 3rd generation VHS-VHS-VHS copy and a full blast raw 4K cinematic projection if it came up and bit them in the pancreas through a shower curtain on a sunny Thursday afternoon. The only reason most people would go for a better movie medium is that it’s fashionable. We video quality connoisseurs are sadly outnumbered by those who simply don’t see, simply don’t understand, or simply don’t care.
The BetaMAX format was awesome. You could record a TV program or a movie straight off the aerial, and playback quality of the recording would be heaps better than any VHS original, let alone a VHS home recording. My only regret is that I never got my hands on one of those machines (I tried to talk my parents into buying one, but “we” had decided we were going to get a dishwasher before we got a VCR, and I suspect that they kept postponing the dishwasher on purpose). I did get to watch BetaMAX at some friends’ places, the few who had dads with sufficient taste for proper gadgets. Movies leeched off the antenna were nearly broadcast quality (and I’m talking PAL here, pal). We did argue with the other lads with less eye for quality and, consequently, in possession of VHS machines, and their argument in favour of the VHS format’s as far as “superior quality” went was … *drum roll* … that there were far more movies available to buy or rent on VHS. So availability trumped quality, hands down. This is among the things that would threaten to make me lose faith in Humanity if I didn’t have an overweight and twisted sense of humour.
I have some 300+ DVD movies (don’t ask me how that happened; I honestly don’t know), which have now been merged with my better half’s collection and … well, we haven’t counted them yet, but my efforts and success in making them all fit within the confinement of one single bookshelf with room for more would have either impressed Einstein for making exquisite and elaborate use of space-time curvature, or terrified him out of danger of creating a black hole. As of yet, only about a handful are Blu-Ray editions (probably subject to change over the next few years).
We own a four or five year old 32″ LCD widescreen of the HD-Ready flavour, with “HD-Ready” meaning it doesn’t go the entire mile to displaying 1080p (though it will scale down a 1080p image). Most of my our DVDs, the ones that have been properly made, play very well on it, in the sense that if you didn’t know you were watching a DVD, you wouldn’t even think to notice that it wasn’t a Blu-Ray. Others are less magnificent. “Alien” disappointed greatly in that respect, looked pretty much like a green blur, and has been upgraded. “Lord of the Rings”, on the other hand, may be able to keep up a bit longer. Except that I really, really, really want that one on Blu-Ray. Extended edition, of course.
With a screen size of 32″, watching from the more or less normal distance of about ten feet (3 metres), you don’t really notice the difference between HD-Ready (720p) and full HD (1080p). I had to demonstrate that to the guy at the shop when I bought this one, just to shut him up about why I ought to double my TV-acquisition budget. Lined up a full HD and a HD-Ready screen side by side, and ran the same HD video feed on both. He couldn’t tell which was which (he tried, but guessed wrong, though to his defense I swapped the labels). You will notice the difference at a watching distance of four inches. Barely. And as I said, most DVDs fare reasonably well too, in the sense that you only really see it if you watch the same video on DVD and Blu-Ray back-to-back.
Up the screen size to 40″ or more, and you’re in a different arena. The “HD-Ready vs full HD” battle is pretty much moot, seeing as more or less every new TV you find today is full HD anyway. And when you get there, my friend, you will notice the difference. But it’s still up to you whether DVD is good enough to watch 🙂