The VHS Thread

[Drtooth]

I completely agree with you there. I have all the movies I want on DVD. I'm not going to go and upgrade to blu ray. For one, the disks are more expensive and two, I never understood why people have to have their movies look like the action is in their living room. Honestly, Hi def tvs creep me out. We still have standard def tvs that work just fine with great picture quality. Another thing with new technology is the constant firmware updates. Man, how I hate that. Its like...I want to put the disk in and play it, not wait for my system to update in order to play it.

From what I understand, blu ray players dont have enough memory to handle all the updates needed. Of course, I read this in a comment section on a video game website, but I digress.

For me, a Blu-Ray would require a not piece of crap TV to really make sense, right? plus, DVD's got... like what? a couple years left of being not obsolete? Everything's going to be downloadable in a while... it's just a needless extra step. And they don't even seem to be selling as well as regulars, and regulars aren't selling that good.

But it's new tech and everyone loves shiny new tech... and all this "even better than watching it in theaters" is, surprise surprise, killing theaters, and causing movies to have to be made cheaper and specifically for DVD releases that lead us to BAAAAAD movies.

but back to VHS... well, again, I think the one thing I really disliked about them were those cheap companies that dubbed poor master tapes on to even poorer SLP tapes... as if they really need to save that much money on 3 episodes on a cassette that retails for 10 bucks or more... I spent a fortune on Ned's Newt videos a decade or so ago and they were ALL in SLP mode... fuzzy audio, fuzzy picture... it seemed like something I taped off TV... and I would have too, if my VCR at that time could record. And then there was the Disney Inspector Gadget "movie" of 3 episodes with new linking footage that had a BAD master tape... it had some audio glitch that sounded like it was left underwater... I returned it twice to realize they were all like that.

Worst quality on a DVD I've seen was Lionsgate's TMNT releases... and those were because of BAD master tapes.

 

[D'Snowth]

plus, DVD's got... like what? a couple years left of being not obsolete?

It better be longer than that.

Everything's going to be downloadable in a while

That's rather unsafe for a lot of different reasons...

1. Copyright disputes, and content not even being available for download.
2. Risk of viruses, trojans, etc.
3. If you're downloading from a site that requires you to create an account, there's the possibility that they give out your e-mail address, thus you start getting spam from them, and umpteen million other sites wanting you to download or buy from them.
4. You can't be guaranteed what you're downloading is in a watchable quality.
5. I could go on.
6. But I won't.

 

[CensoredAlso]

That's rather unsafe for a lot of different reasons...

1. Copyright disputes, and content not even being available for download.
2. Risk of viruses, trojans, etc.

Well if it's a company like Netflix, as opposed to some random person's website, the risks of that kind of thing go down.

3. If you're downloading from a site that requires you to create an account, there's the possibility that they give out your e-mail address, thus you start getting spam from them, and umpteen million other sites wanting you to download or buy from them.

This is very true and it's frustrating that people aren't realizing how dangerous this can end up being.

 

[D'Snowth]

Well if it's a company like Netflix, as opposed to some random person's website, the risks of that kind of thing go down.

Classic Media literally killed my very first laptop (then again, it was a crappy Toshiba) when I downloaded a screensaver from them, and it contained a worm.

 

[Sgt Floyd]

It better be longer than that.
That's rather unsafe for a lot of different reasons...

1. Copyright disputes, and content not even being available for download.
2. Risk of viruses, trojans, etc.
3. If you're downloading from a site that requires you to create an account, there's the possibility that they give out your e-mail address, thus you start getting spam from them, and umpteen million other sites wanting you to download or buy from them.
4. You can't be guaranteed what you're downloading is in a watchable quality.
5. I could go on.
6. But I won't.

1. Copyright disputes only happen if you download something illegally, but yeah, content not being available is a big thing
2. Not if you download something from a legitimate site like itunes or netflix (though netflix streams, I dont think they have downloads)
3. yeah. Spam...my aol email is clogged with spam from my mom using it to sign up for stuff. why the heck she used my email address as opposed to her own I still cant figure out.
4. Yeah. Considering movies are probably huge files and not everyone has immaculate internet access, just having a poor connection can cause bad quality. My mom went through this horrible phase where she would attempt to download 5 or 6 songs at a time on DIAL UP. Needless to say, the quality was pretty bad on the songs. And they were from Amazon, so they were being downloaded from a reputable source.

5. I Will go on.
6. Computers only have so much memory, and people cannot afford to upgrade to a bigger hard drive, meaning all your songs will get cluttered and take up space on your computer.
7. You lose everything if your computer crashes and you did not back up your files (i personally have like 4 copies of all my music on various storage devices)
8. Downloading is sometimes more costly than buying the physical source. Example. I download an album from itunes for (I dunno what they charge so I'll say) $12. You can find the same album used at a yard sale or something usually for a few cents to a buck. Used record stores sell stuff for like 5 bucks usually (at least the ones near me). Unless its like...some really hard to find, rare, out of print cd your looking for, chances are its cheaper to buy a used physical disk. Even if you only want one song for 99 cents, you can still get a better deal if you happen to find the cd its on at a yard sale for a dollar because you are getting the whole CD for the price of one song

Sorry for the wall o text. I absoluty hate the idea of being download only. I like going to a store and hunting through racks of stuff to find the elusive cd I want. Thrill of the find

 

[CensoredAlso]

Classic Media literally killed my very first laptop (then again, it was a crappy Toshiba) when I downloaded a screensaver from them, and it contained a worm.

Right well I said the risks will go down, not disapear. Certainly there will always be ways to hack a website, even an official one. But for the most part major sites like Netflix and iTunes are safe.

 

[Drtooth]

Well if it's a company like Netflix, as opposed to some random person's website, the risks of that kind of thing go down.

That's exactly what I'm referring to. Too many people are doing that, waiting forever for movies to go down to that, and it equals lower box office... and lower box office means less risk, and more terrible films exactly the same as themselves. And if the films actually matter, it's because people are buying all the blurays or whatever... DVD sales now are more important than Box Office. And once the DVD sales stop, we're stuck with movie downloads and "rentals." And lemme tell ya, they're gonna make movies even cheaper because of that.

that said, the "illegal" sources? Yeah... those are going to go bye bye before then. Sure, we'll have hackers or something pirating the films (trust me, I almost wanted to track down a DVD bootlegger on the subway to see if they had Gnomeo and Juliette and buy it out of spite... should have done that with the Cat in the Hat... almost did)... but the studios and internet providers will have changed the internet into something as crappy as TV and movies are currently.

Personally, I don't WANT to pay a fortune to download something that may/maynot work... and for the money, I want to have something physical. I'd rather buy an album at the same price... weren't they originally selling legal MP3's for much cheaper anyway, then they raised the prices sharply? I know I downloaded a Sesame Podcast for free and it crashed my iTunes player and didn't work at ALL on my computer... imagine paying 12+ bucks for that?

 

[CensoredAlso]

That's exactly what I'm referring to. Too many people are doing that, waiting forever for movies to go down to that, and it equals lower box office... and lower box office means less risk, and more terrible films exactly the same as themselves. And if the films actually matter, it's because people are buying all the blurays or whatever... DVD sales now are more important than Box Office. And once the DVD sales stop, we're stuck with movie downloads and "rentals." And lemme tell ya, they're gonna make movies even cheaper because of that.

The same thing happened when Television became popular; motion pictures started to suffer. And I'm not sure they fully recovered until the 1970's. Some of this is about transition.

 

[Drtooth]

And the internet is doing that to TV now, if you really think about it.

The difference between the 50's and now is that movies either fell into "competitive" or "crappy way to waste a date." And we got some of the dumbest, unintentionally funniest, weirdest B-Movies out of that era. Now movies still matter, but much less, and only for the fact they can sell DVD's. That gives motivation to blow the budget on special effects at least so they can look super dooper cool and realistic on Blu-Ray. And those kinds of movies get made just as bad horror and sci-fi films of their day were made. And of course, bad Special effects movies usually wind up blanketing and devaluing GOOD movies that have special effects like that.

Then of course the whole FAKE Geek Chic thing and super hero movies... but that's another story all together.

 

[CensoredAlso]

And the internet is doing that to TV now, if you really think about it.

The difference between the 50's and now is that movies either fell into "competitive" or "crappy way to waste a date." And we got some of the dumbest, unintentionally funniest, weirdest B-Movies out of that era. Now movies still matter, but much less, and only for the fact they can sell DVD's. That gives motivation to blow the budget on special effects at least so they can look super dooper cool and realistic on Blu-Ray. And those kinds of movies get made just as bad horror and sci-fi films of their day were made. And of course, bad Special effects movies usually wind up blanketing and devaluing GOOD movies that have special effects like that.

Wow, I never thought of that, that's a good comparison actually between the gimmicks of the '50s and the 2000's. No wonder 3D has made a comeback!

Then of course the whole FAKE Geek Chic thing and super hero movies... but that's another story all together.

Not sure what you mean? Just asking.