D-VHS better than Blu-ray?

[TheWalkingDead]

Never heard of it before.

We Bought HD Movies on Cassette Tape and They're AMAZING! - YouTube

[Lee A Stewart]

Not really. The Data Transfer Rate for D-VHS was 28.2 Mbps while fror BD it's 54 - almost double.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Procured a JVC HM-DH3000U when it came out, first movie was T2. Big stuff in its day. When the HM–DH5U came out sold my 3000 and procured the DH5, it has HDMI the 3000 did not. During that era I was recording OTA, editing then storing on DF-420 (44 GB) tapes. IIRC the tapes were about $7, a WD 250 GB HDD was > $150.

Still have the HM–DH5U, a few movies and a number of tapes with episodic TV.

[meremortal]

1080i mpeg-2 and using early 2000s masters at best, along with being on vhs. It looks like most titles only had 576 kbps audio. I was kind of interested at the time but never did get into it. Probably the coolest feature would have been the ability to record onto tapes in hd. The format was definitely an ultra-niche and extremely obscure product.

[Geoff D]

First HD format I had, was so exciting at the time when piped through my 32" Sony plasma. Most stuff looked pretty good too, as although they were indeed older (but new at the time! ) masters they weren't slammed with DNR, which would kick in when BD was introduced. I still remember a digitalbits article stating how Universal were going to be giving their catalogue "special attention" as they prepared them for Blu

[McGarnigal]

Originally Posted by Geoff D

First HD format I had, was so exciting at the time when piped through my 32" Sony plasma. Most stuff looked pretty good too, as although they were indeed older (but new at the time! ) masters they weren't slammed with DNR, which would kick in when BD was introduced. I still remember a digitalbits article stating how Universal were going to be giving their catalogue "special attention" as they prepared them for Blu

They made a 32" plasma?

[Geoff D]

Originally Posted by McGarnigal

They made a 32" plasma?

Yep, I can still remember the model number: KE32TS2. They also did a 42" but as the 32" cost two grand at the time I made do with the smaller one!

[oddbox83]

It was DOA, HD-DVD had more market penetration for sell-through titles, and STBs were already replacing videotape and recordable discs for time-shifting. A few early adopters got it, but that was it.

I remember you could fit a ton of SD material on a tape though.

[slimdude]

I remember D-VHS. The format died quickly just as it arrived.

[Lee A Stewart]

D-VHS: This is how your HD film collection might have been

https://www.redsharknews.com/studio-...ight-have-been

[BluPat]

Is this a serious question or a joke?

[8traxrule]

There were fewer than 100 titles released, I have all except two (American Pie and The Bourne Identity- which is the Atari 2600 "Combat" of HD-DVDs, but ironically very rare on D-VHS.) Quality is certainly better than DVD but not either HD disc format. Biggest drawback is the image pixelates (like bad digital TV reception) during dropouts or tape damage, rather than the occasional lines you would see on analog VHS.

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by 8traxrule

Biggest drawback is the image pixelates (like bad digital TV reception) during dropouts or tape damage, rather than the occasional lines you would see on analog VHS.

Tape heads require frequent manual cleaning. I use 99% isopropyl alcohol and special lint free clothes. Chamois cloths made for this purpose is also used.

[danny24]

Actually it can be if the studios didn't do a good transfer for Blu-ray as the video explained. Examples are The Family Man w/Nic Cage (D-VHS version looks better than the Blu-ray) and obviously The Hurricane looks better than the Blu-ray. If the D-theater tape wins it's usually a bad transfer that's the reason because Blu-ray is a way better format it's not even close. D-VHS though is a wonderful format it's to bad it never caught on and went more mainstream. Would have loved more D-Theater tape releases. I remember hoping The Fifth Element would come out on D-VHS back in it's heyday but Sony never backed the format. It was mainly Fox, Universal.

[Lee A Stewart]

The format's primary use was to record 1080i/720P HD programs from OTA, CBL and SAT. D-Theater was an after thought and yes - backed by only a couple of studios.

[Wendell R. Breland]

There were quite a few of us D-Theater owners in a thread at AVS and most of us knew it was an interim format because (excerpt):

Tokyo Japan, February 19, 2002: Nine leading companies today announced that they have jointly established the basic specifications for a next generation large capacity optical disc video recording format called “Blu–ray Disc”. The Blu–ray Disc enables the recording, rewriting and play back of up to 27 gigabytes (GB) of data on a single sided single layer 12cm CD/DVD size disc using a 405nm blue–violet laser.

As noted earlier we were watching movies in HD several years before the general populous even was aware of movies HD.

My office setup where I demoed the first five minutes of T2 numerous times:

[Wendell R. Breland]

Originally Posted by Lee A Stewart

D-Theater was an after thought and yes - backed by only a couple of studios.

Member DRMPEG could answer this better than I but, IIRC, the hangup was Firewire copy protection. Once 5C was in place for IEEE 1394 then HD movies were released on the format. Ron (drmpeg here, dr1394 at AVS) did a lot of contract work for the codec (H.262) and the 1394 interface for JVC.

[slimdude]

Originally Posted by TheWalkingDead

Never heard of it before.
We Bought HD Movies on Cassette Tape and They're AMAZING! - YouTube

This guy's voice doesn't match his looks. He sounds more like a woman than a man.

[SpaceBlackKnight]

A good amount of D-Theater titles (mainly Universal ones) lack the degraining/processing nasties their HD-DVD and BD counterparts have. Some titles, like Alien: Directors Cut and Die Hard 1&2, use completely different masters than the BDs. I know for sure Alien DC is based on the HD master used for the 2003 DVD. Does anyone have Die Hard 1 & 2 to see if they're the BD masters or the DVD transfers in native HD?