"VHS is better than DVD?"

[IronWing]

And more importantly, it still has zero advantages to CD, and many, many, many disadvantages.

People like it. <shrug>

 

[Eug]

People like it. <shrug>

Well, I have an antique phonograph with hand crank that plays 78s. It looks somewhat like this:

That rectangular part just below the top is actually the horn, which is why it doesn't have a solid front. There is a grill in this picture that lets the sound out. Think of it as something similar to one of these, but enclosed in a cabinet.

I like it a lot, and it gives that authentic 1930s sound from vinyl records I find in antique shops.

However, that doesn't mean I'm foolish enough to believe it has any advantages over CD. Well, OK, it has the advantage of being able to play 1930s 78 rpm discs, and can do so in a power outage. Oh, and it's a conversation piece.

 

[NutBucket]

After investing in decent audio equipment to play vinyl, my brother recently admitted that when he compared like-for-like, he couldn't tell the difference. Yet when his birthday came around, he still wanted vinyl.

I still only buy CDs because I want the lossless format (as well as something physical), but the first thing that happens to any new disc I get is that I rip it to mp3 with high quality settings. The CDs go into storage after that.

1.) Your brother is deaf because there is absolutely a difference. Which one you prefer is obviously your opinion.

2.) CDs aren't lossless. Anytime you digitize something there is inherent loss. An SACD is far less lossy since the sampling rate is 64 times greater than a CD.

 

[Ichinisan]

I think that's DVD player-specific. On mine I wish I could skip them utterly, fast forwarding is the only thing that works on mine though (don't know if you've tried scene-skipping or pressing the menu button).

Ever heard of Disney FastPlay?

Don't press skip, fast-forward, or menu. Just press Play.

 

[Eug]

Ever heard of Disney FastPlay?

Don't press skip, fast-forward, or menu. Just press Play.

That came later. Earlier Disney disks FORCE you to watch the trailers... which is why for a very long time I refused to buy most Disney movies.

Finally Disney smartened up and introduced FastPlay. I wonder if it was because of lost customers like me. I dunno, but Disney was one of the worst for this and got a bad reputation amongst the home video geeks because of this.

 

[Puffnstuff]

In all honesty there are many contributing factors in how your music will sound that you must take into consideration when trying to determine which method is better. The quality of the record, condition of the surface, quality of the pickup cartridge and the playback system all come into view. I had an extensive record collection at one time and used to invest in the high dollar turntables and pickups and would rather have digital any day of the week.

 

[Oyeve]

1.) Your brother is deaf because there is absolutely a difference. Which one you prefer is obviously your opinion.

2.) CDs aren't lossless. Anytime you digitize something there is inherent loss. An SACD is far less lossy since the sampling rate is 64 times greater than a CD.

I have many vinyls and cd of the same album and on some pressings the vinyl is better than the cd counterpart. EX, The Police: Zentatta Mondatta. The 1981 Japanese vinyl is far superior than the 2006 remaster. Hell, the regular vinyl copy I have from 1980 is better. I also have some 80s pressings of classical music that are superior to their cds. Many cds from the mid 80s sounded horrible compare to the vinyl. Yes, cd eventually was made better but in the last few years so has vinyl. Nothing beats cd for convenience tho.

 

[mikeymikec]

1.) Your brother is deaf because there is absolutely a difference.

Nothing quite like someone who attempts to argue an absolute on a topic that obviously has many, many variables.

2.) CDs aren't lossless. Anytime you digitize something there is inherent loss. An SACD is far less lossy since the sampling rate is 64 times greater than a CD.

Every recording process (from the live performance) is inherently lossy if you intend to split hairs.

 

[NutBucket]

That's everything to do with the mixing/mastering of the album and very little to with the format. These days a lot of CDs sound like crap on a good hifi because they're mixed knowing that most people listen with crappy earbuds, etc.

 

[NutBucket]

Every recording process (from the live performance) is inherently lossy if you intend to split hairs.

Yes, but just because something is digital doesn't inherently make it lossless. The sampling rate of a CD is simply too low IMHO.

 

[Eug]

This a gross overgeneralization, but a lot of vinyl sounds different and "warmer", but that's because vinyl setups generally introduce distortion which isn't there on CD. A common one is attenuation of the upper high frequencies, whereas they come through loud and clear on CD, which some people consider overly bright.

In fact, Carver put out a CD player to replicate this warmth. Some people preferred the so-called warmer sound mode of the Carver, but all it did was to distort the sound the same way vinyl did. This was intentional, and measurements confirmed this. The frequency response curve of the Carver in that mode was simply inaccurate, whereas the frequency response curve with the warmer mode off was flat.

There is nothing wrong with this, but you could do the exact same thing with an equalizer. The problem with vinyl is you're starting off distorted, so you have to like that sound to begin with.

One thing that is true though is that some recording engineers mastered the discs with this in mind and didn't adjust for this for CD. But on the other hand, CD is the great equalizer. Even a cheap CD player will produce a much more accurate sound than a high-end turntable, while the vast majority of turntables out there will produce very inaccurate sound. And that inaccuracy just gets worse with each repeated play of a disc. The more a disc is used, the worse it gets.

People argue that CD is not high enough resolution. There is some justification for that, but a lot of the claims don't have all that much merit. For example, people talk about SACD as being superior, but forget that SACDs often are remastered before release. So you compare an old CD album with a remastered version for SACD, and yes the SACD will sound better.

It's similar with 4K vs. Blu-ray. Yes 4K is great, but one interesting thing I've noted from some comparisons is that some 4K HDR discs that are played in SDR-compatibility mode on a 1080p SDR display will produce a more vibrant and detailed picture than the corresponding 1080p Blu-ray. The reason for this is that the discs are mastered differently, often with different software.

And then there's The Fifth Element. That disc has been put out several times now on Blu-ray. The difference between the latest version and the first version is almost as big as Blu-ray vs DVD.

 

[NutBucket]

It's also "bright" because the upper frequencies is where the CD the least accurately captures sound. The detail simply isn't there.

 

[Eug]

It's also "bright" because the upper frequencies is where the CD the least accurately captures sound. The detail simply isn't there.

That's arguable, since some people will claim the same thing with SACD as the source (depending upon how it's mastered).

And even if what you were saying was true, overall a cheap CD player would still produce a more accurate sound than even a high end vinyl setup.

 

[NutBucket]

True, but adding mastering to the mix (pun intended) is completely different discussion. In many ways, mastering is just a means to compensate for the inherent limitations of the format in question.

 

[pmv]

1.) Your brother is deaf because there is absolutely a difference. Which one you prefer is obviously your opinion.

2.) CDs aren't lossless. Anytime you digitize something there is inherent loss. An SACD is far less lossy since the sampling rate is 64 times greater than a CD.

Vinyl isn't lossless either. But its a question of what you can actually hear, which is quite a complex issue. True lossless would be hiring the artists to come and play real instruments in your living room, but then there would be acoustic issues with the room so probably still some sort of 'loss'. Life is all about loss, can't be avoided.

And surely the skill/quality of the mastering is going to have more effect than whether its vinyl or digital as the storage medium? Lots of music is badly mastered/mixed (and lots of music is just bad to being with! Hi-fi obsessives often seem to have particularly bad taste! )


Personally I always hated vinyl because as a kid I couldn't afford many records, and it really cheesed me off when they'd self-destruct and develop any number of clicks, pops and skips no matter how carefully I tried to store them. For that reason I thought cds were fantastic when they appeared (though, God, they were overpriced, thanks to the industry's cartels)

 

[NutBucket]

Right, hence the post right above yours mentions mixing/mastering

 

[Eug]

Personally I always hated vinyl because as a kid I couldn't afford many records, and it really cheesed me off when they'd self-destruct and develop any number of clicks, pops and skips no matter how carefully I tried to store them. For that reason I thought cds were fantastic when they appeared (though, God, they were overpriced, thanks to the industry's cartels)

Well, vinyl wasn't exactly uber cheap around where I lived. CDs were reasonably price competitive not too long after they came out.

Plus I could walk around with my portable CD player too, which was great. Mind you, by today's standards, that thing was huge.

BTW, my sister and her husband were a little skeptical of CD when it first came out. So, I visited them with my player and plugged it into their home stereo system, and it blew them away. They were flabbergasted that my portable player was simply so much better than their home components. They got a CD player soon afterwards. Most of their purchases from that point on were on CD.

Technics SL-XP7

Wow how time flies. I got that in 1986, 30 years ago!

 

[Skel]

Weren't DVDs the first to have true 5.1 sound on them? I remember buying my first DVD player for the sound, the VHS stuff I had were only stereo.

 

[BUTCH1]

D-VHS was much higher quality (HDTV) than DVD
(and could be recorded on SVHS tapes with a simple mod.)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-VHS

Sucks that the only way to record was by firewire otherwise this thing might have took off.

 

[Ns1]

And sadly, at that resolution, there isn't enough makeup in the world to cover up the tears.

Why would I want to cover up the tears?

 

[A Casual Fitz]

Weren't DVDs the first to have true 5.1 sound on them? I remember buying my first DVD player for the sound, the VHS stuff I had were only stereo.

The sound is one of the most obvious distractions when watching VHS. I can get used to the picture after a while.

 

[Eug]

Weren't DVDs the first to have true 5.1 sound on them? I remember buying my first DVD player for the sound, the VHS stuff I had were only stereo.

No, Dolby Digital 5.1 was already available on laserdisc.

And VHS had Dolby Pro Logic.

 

[uro.jean-paul]

No, Dolby Digital 5.1 was already available on laserdisc.

And VHS had Dolby Pro Logic.

True, but ProLogic was no discrete 5.1, only 4.0 matrix-coded on stereo channels.

Envoyé de mon E5603 en utilisant Tapatalk

 

[ViRGE]

Nope. The much lower capacity per disc layer made HD-DVD a poor choice. It was just cheaper to manufacture early on.

Agreed. The format war wasn't a fair fight, but the outcome none the less was the better tech winning.

It's been hard enough convincing people to jump to Blu-Ray, never mind how hard it would have been with HD DVD's lower disc capacities and bitrates. Also, the hard coat developed for Blu-Ray is fantastic.

 

[Eug]

Agreed. The format war wasn't a fair fight, but the outcome none the less was the better tech winning.

It's been hard enough convincing people to jump to Blu-Ray, never mind how hard it would have been with HD DVD's lower disc capacities and bitrates. Also, the hard coat developed for Blu-Ray is fantastic.

I don't think Blu-ray was necessarily the better format. It was the bigger format. Ironically, this was similar to VHS / beta war, but this time with Sony with the bigger format.

Hard coat was necessary for Blu-ray. Optional for HD DVD. HD DVD didn't need the hard coat, but could use it if desired. In fact, the hard coat can be used on DVD too, and TDK has released archival DVD recordable discs with the hard coat.

Another thing is Blu-ray is region coded. HD DVD wasn't.

Also, the disc authors claimed that HD DVD had much better interactive tools for the discs. That was Microsoft's baby, and the environment was much more flexible for home video and easy to learn, as it was based on web standards. In contrast, Blu-ray is based on Java. Think about that for a second, in current terms. Arguably in 2016 in non-enterprise markets, Java is essentially dead.

IOW, HD DVD had some distinct and significant advantages over Blu-ray. IMO, the ideal solution would have been the more elegant HD DVD software platform, but using BDs for the capacity.

To put that in the VHS/beta context, arguably the preferred outcome would have been to use beta technology but with longer tapes.