VCRs

[Anonymous No.3332689]

you guys are purist, so tell me, are there any downsides to connecting your consoles through a VCR?

[Anonymous No.3332695]

>>3332689
Few VCRs have Svideo and even fewer have RGB. There's no inherent drawback though unless you're using it as an RF modulator or something dumb like that.

[Anonymous No.3332697]

>>3332689
Usually no, it's just a throughput, similar to an AV Splitter.

You'll be limited to composite or RF/coaxial usually.

You usually won't need one though.

[Anonymous No.3332704]

>>3332689
not if youre using s-video or composite

[Anonymous No.3332759]

>>3332689
Unless you're going to watch VHS tapes, a switch box is a better choice. It's smaller and has more inputs than a VCR, and it will probably draw less electricity to boot.

One thing that was nice about VCRs was that it was a great way to record gameplay for the time. My brother actually rigged up a microphone and recorded a Let's Play of Zelda 3 all the way back in the 1990s, although I'm not sure where the tape went. I can't even remember how he managed to record the audio from the game and his voice at the same time, although I think he might have used the camcorder for it somehow.

[Anonymous No.3332802]

Just for the sake of it?

I use one as a TV tuner so I can record from coax systems like the Atari 2600 and the Master System 2.
(I record from the ouput, not on the VCR itself, although I used to do that eons ago)

[Anonymous No.3332820]

In 2016 there is absolutely no fucking reason to be using a VCR to hook up your game consoles. We have a dozen other options now for clear video quality.

[Anonymous No.3332871]

>>3332820
>current year poster
ugh

[Anonymous No.3332934]

Downsides? You have to use a second power outlet. You just added another box to your entertainment stand. You just added wires to your rat's nest. You slightly filter the signal, which to some people is a downside.

Fact is, it's the cheapest modulator you're gonna find, and for people who don't like soldering or paying exorbitant fees to get ALL their consoles modded, it's a reasonable solution to getting composite out for whatever setup you have.

[Anonymous No.3332994]

>>3332759
>>One thing that was nice about VCRs was that it was a great way to record gameplay for the time
Whenever I recorded gameplay (Mega Drive 2, RF connection) the resulting video was always all messed up. I had it in my mind that it was intentional, that they didn't want people making videos of games, but now I wonder if it was just an oddity with my VCR. After all, years later my cousin sent me tapes with Playstation gameplay on them, and they were fine.

[Anonymous No.3333020]

>>3332994
Your cousin was probably using composite rather than RF. Whenever I plugged into a VCR it was always through composite, because even as a kid I noticed that the signal was a lot more reliable. Those RF switch boxes that came with the NES and Genesis had a nasty habit of breaking, and before they stopped working completely they had very poor quality video.

Composite still isn't the greatest, but even when going from composite to RF through a VCR I noticed that the signal was generally much better than when I just went straight from RF to RF. I think that as a rule of thumb, most VCRs had higher quality RF modulators than the ones that they would stick inside of game consoles. And as said before, the RF switches Nintendo and Sega made were cheaply made and unreliable. They probably used relay switches to detect when the game console was turned on so they could automatically switch the circuit away from the TV antenna, and the problem with relay switches is that they wear out.

Of course, the best possible picture quality you can get from a TV that only has RF is to use a standalone RF modulator, since they are designed to strip out any signal interference and give the cleanest possible picture. They were made to bypass the copy protection on DVD players, which on a VCR would cause the image to get scrambled. My family had to buy one when I saved up and bought us our first DVD player, because the only way to make it work before that was to use an old broken 80s VCR which caused the image to fade from light to dark in regular intervals.

The broken VCR was at least better than the scrambling that a modern VCR caused, but it was only a stopgap until Radio Shack got the RF modulator we special ordered in (this was back around 2000 or 2001, and no-one had them in stock yet).

Honestly though, if you have a CRT TV that only has RF, you should just throw it out and get one that at least has composite. The thrift stores will only charge you like $5 for one.

[Anonymous No.3333027]

>>3332689
vcrs eat tapes. be very careful. I had to dig a tape out of a vcr once before it ate it.

[Anonymous No.3333338]

>>3333027
If it eats a tape then you need to clean the head and replace the belts. Most likely the belts though, if it played fine but fucked up when ejecting.

A properly functioning vcr wont eat a tape.

[Anonymous No.3333648]

>>3333020
Good advice

[Anonymous No.3333673]

>>3332934
This is exactly right. I don't like modding my shit, so I use a VCR to get my 'channel 95' Famicom and PC Engine converted to composite. I actually bought a professional SONY TV tuner to do the same thing, and the quality was 100x worse than using a broken VCR I got at a thrift store for $5. Lesson learned. Not to mention I can then connect the RF out of the VCR to a horrible TV capture card I have and take awful screenshots and video like pic related.

[Anonymous No.3333682]

Using a VCR is one way to use RF-only consoles in different regions. An NTSC Atari 2600 won't work on most European TVs directly through RF, but if you import a US VCR and connect that up via composite, it will work through the VCR.

Of course, for most people an AV mod is a better option, but this is the only way for some purists.

[Anonymous No.3333686]

>>3332689
I would always get better picture quality on my CRT sets when I played through the VCR. I have zero knowledge of the mechanisms behind this, though.

[Anonymous No.3333826]

>>3332871
Take your /pol/ shit elsewhere. Current year is actually relevant when it comes to technological advances, dumbass.

[Anonymous No.3333932]

>>3333027
Conversely, I once had a TAPE eat my VCR.

[Anonymous No.3333946]

>>3332820
What if he wanted to watch old VHS tapes of movies that aren't on DVD and Blu-ray yet?

[Kya !kDashing02 No.3334617]

>>3333686
Quite possible that the VCR had a comb filter built into it and this it was either better than the one in your TV.

[Anonymous No.3334640]

Hijacking this thread for a minute: Is it safe to buy VCRs from a thrift store?
Are people getting rid of them because they're obsolete or because they're broke?
Are there any red flags to look out for?

[Kya !kDashing02 No.3334648]

>>3334640
Likely due to just being old and having moved on to at the very least DVDs.

I bought a real nice Mitsubishi with SVHS support and everything for ~$6 and it worked like a charm until I somehow managed to fuck it up and cause it to output video with a strange horizontal offset.

[Anonymous No.3334653]

>>3333826
Except, we aren't talking about advances on a retro board. Jesus. Why are you here?

[Anonymous No.3334720]

>>3332695
>Few VCRs have Svideo
This shit pisses me off too. My father in law gave me his old dvd/vhs combo since he was going to toss it out and the fucking svideo only works for the DVD end. Fucking why. I'm still on the hunt for a Laserdisc player with Svideo support too.

[Anonymous No.3334747]

>>3334720
>I'm still on the hunt for a Laserdisc player with Svideo support too.
I feel your pain. Got a nice big CRT with s-video, all my consoles go through s-video, but my LD player is composhit. And thanks to the TV's odd handling of input, I have to unplug my s-video switch to get it to see the composite input. All I want is a fucking LD player with S-video, why is this so difficult? Shit should have been fucking standard, since LD was considered high-end anyways.

As for S-video capable VCR's, there's a problem. No one really bothered using anything better than composite for basic VHS, since VHS couldn't use any more bandwidth than what composite provided. So no one really bothered with s-video on VHS, with the exception of S-VHS. So your best bet to find a VCR with s-video is to look around for a S-VHS capable VCR. Of course, they tend to be more expensive.

[Anonymous No.3334763]

>>3332689
I might be wrong but isnt the most direct connection the best, even with pass through? I noticed when I plug in the audio plugs to my TV which send Line out the stereo, that its much quieter than sending the audio plugs right to the stereo..

[Anonymous No.3334771]

>>3332695
>>3334720

I bought a TOTL Sony pro-sumer VCR once from a thrift store and even THAT didnt have S-video on it. When/what time period did svideo makes it way to VHS? surely s-vhs was out by then.

plus side is that the VCR looks pretty sleek

[Anonymous No.3334781]

>>3334771
svideo is only used with svhs

its SUPER video for SUPER vhs quality.

[Anonymous No.3334786]

>>3334747
>>3334720
I'm that S-Video poster and I'm about to improve your lives. Laserdiscs are actually physically recorded in (high bandwidth) composite so any other output on a laserdisc player is a result of the player itself resampling the image (usually called "comb filtering" in this kind of analog-to-analog process). So basically if you hunt down a "high end" laserdisc player you're not actually going to see as much improvement as you would spending the same money on something modern like a framemeister which would also benefit you in many additional ways.

[Anonymous No.3334796]

>>3334781
>>3334771
I have a Samsung dual deck VCR/DVDR that will output VHS over HDMI (as well as component)

[Anonymous No.3334803]

>>3334786
I don't care about that, I'm tired of having to unplug my s-video shit every time I wanna watch something on LD. Inconvenient as fuck, and I get tired of fucking around with cables. If I was greatly concerned with video quality, I would be looking to move to RGB or component.

[Anonymous No.3334806]

>>3334771
has a fold down shuttle deck or something, great video quality for VHS but ultmately useless for anything else.

>>3334796
I have one of those as well, but on mine I think composite is as high as the VHS side goes, but once you flip to dvd mode you have access to svideo, and component+digital

[Anonymous No.3334808]

>>3333826
What did his post have to do with /pol/?

[Anonymous No.3334829]

>>3334803
Well the point is that the laserdisc itself only contains a composite video stream. Stick with your composite player then run it and your other composite native devices (like NES) through a single modern upscaler or transcoder. No fucking with wires required once it's set up to start with.

[Anonymous No.3334841]

I got lucky and found an 4-port svideo analog switch box at goodwill for $2
you just press the switch to change inputs no plugs or power. IQ looks fine. I'm glad I found it because my tv had 1 svideo input but I had n64,snes,and genesis feeding in so I had to reach behind and switch all the time

[Anonymous No.3334854]

>>3334829
What would be the point? All my consoles already are s-video. Besides, I see no point in getting an upscaler/transcoder since I'm just using an old CRT. If I wanted to push to an LCD or LED and use HDMI or something, I could understand it. But I'm not, so I really see no benefit to it.

Besides, I already have more than enough shit on the TV stand, I really don't need another adapter box.

[Anonymous No.3335564]

>>3333932
>Conversely, I once had a TAPE eat my VCR.

This sucks so much. Thanks to my klutzy cousins, I got plenty of experience in minor VCR repair as a kid.

I imagine that some computer users had the same difficulties with tape drives, fortunately we had disks in my area.

[Anonymous No.3335596]

>>3332689
The only reason to use a VCR is if you're using it as a tuner with consoles that are RF only. If you're not doing that you don't need one. If you are doing that all this shit ITT about svideo, etc is pointless because it won't improve an RF signal.

[Anonymous No.3335857]

>>3334640
Some could be broke most are probably fine though. Just try them out before buying.

Most stores around here have outlets where you can plug in shit and vhs tapes. Grab a tape, plug in the vcr, and ff/rw then play and ff/rw when the tape is playing for a bit. See if it fucks it up.

[Anonymous No.3335863]

>>3334720
Svideo output is mostly lost on normal vhs tapes though. The information is stored on the tape in composite form, not svideo form (luma/chroma).

Only real benefit of svideo with standard vhs tapes is maybe slightly crisper text.

One thing I recently noticed, some dvd/vhs combo decks have svideo out, even though they dont support svhs. Should be able to get slightly better text with those.

[Anonymous No.3335867]

>>3335863
Oh shit... stupid mobile. Took so long to type that I forgot you mentioned svideo not working on vhs side of a combo. Oh well, I never did try it so I was just guess from an observation.

[Anonymous No.3335881]

If RF cables can have many channels that are all of SD quality, why can't a single signal on a composite cable have anything but a slight reduction in noise?

[Anonymous No.3339115]

>>3335881
Because the standard doesn't allow for anything better.

[Anonymous No.3339231]

>>3339115
Why?

[Anonymous No.3339247]

>>3339231
>>3335881
Bandwidth vs frequency

[Anonymous No.3339439]

>>3339231
Because that's how the standard was designed, 5 year old who responds to each answer with "Why?" and is to small to use google on mommies macbook without a booster chair.