Searching for VHS Releases in Original Dolby Surround & Post-Pro Logic I Re-releases

[Andrea-Smith]

I've been on the lookout for VHS releases that have maintained or reissued the original audio formats. Specifically, I'm interested in movies that were released in either Room Advice 5.1.2 or 7.1 NEXUS ICELAND PORTAL Digital Pay statements mobile Application designs, hr services for startups surround sound. I find that the audio quality of these releases has a certain charm and uniqueness that just can't be replicated with modern audio technologies. If any of you fellow enthusiasts have some advice or insights, I'd greatly appreciate it.

 

[Movie2099]

I've been on the lookout for VHS releases that have maintained or reissued the original audio formats. Specifically, I'm interested in movies that were released in either Room Advice 5.1.2 or 7.1 surround sound. I find that the audio quality of these releases has a certain charm and uniqueness that just can't be replicated with modern audio technologies. If any of you fellow enthusiasts have some advice or insights, I'd greatly appreciate it.

I think you're going to have a tough time finding this. Haha. You will need a receiver that can play Dolby Pro-Logic I or II. And I'm pretty sure there were no sound formats on VHS that were above 5.1. None that I'm aware of. If there were, they were probably the last VHS's sold before DVD took over. I also think you'll need a Hi-Fi VHS player as well. A normal old VCR won't work.

You will probably have hit up ebay or Audiogon to find this stuff.

 

[TLS Guy]

I think you're going to have a tough time finding this. Haha. You will need a receiver that can play Dolby Pro-Logic I or II. And I'm pretty sure there were no sound formats on VHS that were above 5.1. None that I'm aware of. If there were, they were probably the last VHS's sold before DVD took over. I also think you'll need a Hi-Fi VHS player as well. A normal old VCR won't work.

You will probably have hit up ebay or Audiogon to find this stuff.

VHS tapes never had more than two tracks. The Hi-Fi tapes were multiplex stereo as I explained above. It was all tricks with phase at the receiver. The SQ was excellent stereo though, on the Hi-Fi tapes. It was all very similar technology to those matrix disc recordings. Prior to DVD release the only discrete multi channel domestic audio format was four channel reel to reel tape, but there was no video with that of course. There were never any 5.1 VHS video tapes. The technology could not possibly support it.

 

[Trebdp83]

Laserdiscs supported Dolby Digital 5.1(1995) and DTS 5.1(1997) before DVD supported them. It is the forgotten audio/video format. DTS was often clipped on DVD and the laserdisc DTS tracks were superior to them.

VHS Hi-Fi tapes meant nothing without a Hi-Fi player and many VCRs lacked stereo sound. Even when using a Hi-Fi player and Pro Logic receiver, the surround sound was a matrix, mono signal. But, that doesn’t mean a nice setup didn’t sound great when playing VHS tapes.

 

[TLS Guy]

Laserdiscs supported Dolby Digital 5.1(1995) and DTS 5.1(1997) before DVD supported them. It is the forgotten audio/video format. DTS was often clipped on DVD and the laserdisc DTS tracks were superior to them.

VHS Hi-Fi tapes meant nothing without a Hi-Fi player and many VCRs lacked stereo sound. Even when using a Hi-Fi player and Pro Logic receiver, the surround sound was a matrix, mono signal. But, that doesn’t mean a nice setup didn’t sound great when playing VHS tapes.

Laser disc was a pretty lousy hybrid system. The video signal analog and the audio digital. The problems was that meant there was no error correction on the video signal. I never went for that system. The RCA capacitance AV disc system was just plain hopeless.

As I said in another post the fidelity of the Hi-Fi VHS system was excellent. It was a system where the audio was on the spinning video drum but with the heads at 90 with a 90 degree azimuth shift. So the audio cut across the video. It was a matrix system borrowed from the FM stereo multiplex system. Two channels was maximum for it though.

I have just looked at a VHS tape from that era, the boxed set of the first three Star Wars movies. There is a bit of a sleight of hand on the tapes. It says THX Digitally Mastered. The intent is to make the ill informed think it is a digital tape when it is not.

 

[TLS Guy]

I've been on the lookout for VHS releases that have maintained or reissued the original audio formats. Specifically, I'm interested in movies that were released in either Room Advice 5.1.2 or 7.1 surround sound. I find that the audio quality of these releases has a certain charm and uniqueness that just can't be replicated with modern audio technologies. If any of you fellow enthusiasts have some advice or insights, I'd greatly appreciate it.

There are no VHS 5.1 or 7.1, the format did not support it. Laserdisc had digital audio and did, but good luck finding dics and a working player now. The first reliable system was DVD, where both video and audio were digital.

 

[Trebdp83]

My point was that you were wrong about DVD being the first to feature discrete multichannel audio. Not a big deal, but you always seem to make one. I seem to remember you saying elsewhere that you never got into laserdiscs. How you can compare the audio/video performance of it against VHS or DVD is a mystery. I enjoyed laserdiscs. I had many of them and many friends who also had systems using laserdisc players and could compare them to VHS and DVD versions of some movies. Video was better than VHS of course. The best laserdisc had better audio and video than many early DVDs. But, discs were big and expensive and not all players could play both sides of a disc. CAV discs only held thirty minutes per side and very long movies used multiple discs. There was also laser rot.

Some later Star Wars VHS tapes also had a Dolby Digital label on them as well as the THX Digitally Mastered label. They figured they save money by putting the same label on all of the DVDs, laserdiscs and VHS tapes. I had a widescreen copy of "The Phantom Menace" on VHS. The movie was s#%t so the s#%ty video quality of the VHS tape was fitting.

 

[TLS Guy]

My point was that you were wrong about DVD being the first to feature discrete multichannel audio. Not a big deal, but you always seem to make one. I seem to remember you saying elsewhere that you never got into laserdiscs. How you can compare the audio/video performance of it against VHS or DVD is a mystery. I enjoyed laserdiscs. I had many of them and many friends who also had systems using laserdisc players and could compare them to VHS and DVD versions of some movies. Video was better than VHS of course. The best laserdisc had better audio and video than many early DVDs. But, discs were big and expensive and not all players could play both sides of a disc. CAV discs only held thirty minutes per side and very long movies used multiple discs. There was also laser rot.

Some later Star Wars VHS tapes also had a Dolby Digital label on them as well as the THX Digitally Mastered label. They figured they save money by putting the same label on all of the DVDs, laserdiscs and VHS tapes. I had a widescreen copy of "The Phantom Menace" on VHS. The movie was s#%t so the s#%ty video quality of the VHS tape was fitting.

I had some friends that had Laserdiscs, and that convinced me I did not need one. Quite honestly I did not find the audio significantly better than the Hi-Fi VHS. Picture was hard to evaluate given the TV technology of the time. I did not design a multichannel audio system for discrete multi channel until 2006..That was the first year I got into flat screens. The first player was my Marantz DV 9600, which I still have.

 

[Trebdp83]

Many in the 90’s may have had laserdisc players but the issue with AC-3(Dolby Digital 5.1) on laserdisc was that the players used an AC-3 RF OUT port to connect to the AC-3 RF IN port on a processor/receiver. The coaxial or optical port could pass PCM or DTS but not AC-3(Dolby Digital 5.1.)

There were external AC-3 RF demodulators for those with equipped players connecting to processor/receivers without AC-3RF IN ports. Some had players that pre dated the AC-3 RF OUT port and had them modified for AC-3 output over coaxial and optical.

Without means of getting AC-3(Dolby Digital 5.1) audio to a processor/receiver and onto a 5.1 speaker system, only a two channel stereo signal was available for output using up mixers when playing such laserdiscs. The same title on VHS Hi-Fi would not have looked as good but may have sounded as good on the same system. DTS had other issues but I’ve derailed this thread enough. Apologies to @Andrea-Smith.

 

[TLS Guy]

Many in the 90’s may have had laserdisc players but the issue with AC-3(Dolby Digital 5.1) on laserdisc was that the players used an AC-3 RF OUT port to connect to the AC-3 RF IN port on a processor/receiver. The coaxial or optical port could pass PCM or DTS but not AC-3(Dolby Digital 5.1.)

There were external AC-3 RF demodulators for those with equipped players connecting to processor/receivers without AC-3RF IN ports. Some had players that pre dated the AC-3 RF OUT port and had them modified for AC-3 output over coaxial and optical.

Without means of getting AC-3(Dolby Digital 5.1) audio to a processor/receiver and onto a 5.1 speaker system, only a two channel stereo signal was available for output using up mixers when playing such laserdiscs. The same title on VHS Hi-Fi would not have looked as good but may have sounded as good on the same system. DTS had other issues but I’ve derailed this thread enough. Apologies to @Andrea-Smith.

You have not derailed it at all. That was important information I was not aware of since I was never tempted to buy one, and I'm glad I did not actually. But you have provided important history. If people who were around with this gear do not document it, then it is forgotten. I think both the laserdisc players and discs are very rare now, and I suspect the RCA capacitance discs probably extinct.