VHS, DVD or Blu-ray! A debate for the ages!

[Bethany M]

So over the weekend my friends and I found a VCR and some Disney VHS's for only $5 at a yard sale so naturally we jumped on it! We were watching Toy Story and it started a huge debate that is still going on so I want your opnions!

Me and Friend #4 think that VHS is awesome for the nostalgicness of it, and the rawness. (Though we both love Blu-ray as well!)
Friend #1 thinks that DVD is the best because its clear and cheaper than blu-ray, while Friend's #2 and #3 think that blu-ray is the only way to go and to forget VHS and DVD.

So the biggest question is which way do you prefer to watch your Disney?

And for debate purposes the VHS's we picked up were:
Toy Story 1 and 2
Santa who?
The Santa Clause
Hunchback of Notre Dame 1 and 2
The Rescurers
Peter Pan

 

[lilclerk]

The only reason I still have a VCR is to convert all the things I taped over the years (too many things...) to digital. Once I'm done with that, the VCR and all the cassettes are going bye-bye. haha. I do like the nostalgia of VHS (I'm one of those people that uploads old commercials to Youtube), but they are so big and bulky to store, and the quality looks terrible on newer TVs.
Between Blu-Ray and DVD, I don't really care. Blu-Rays tend to have better special features, so I guess I'll go for that.

 

[clarksfan95]

There is a large difference in quality between all 3. Blu-Ray "is" much better than DVDs, but some of that depends on the quality of the initial transfer. I've seen some questionable Blu-Rays, but they were of older movies that didn't have a digital film print to transfer from and they obviously didn't spend the time cleaning and restoring the original film copy.

DVDs are nice because of the cost and the picture isn't really all that bad. I just bought the Hobbit from Target because it was on sale and I didn't think the picture was bad at all. They will be getting phased out more sooner than later though.

Blu-Rays have more space on the discs which allow for much more additional content and better clarity of the digital film print. They are more costly, but I remember new DVDs once being $30. It's only a matter of time before Blu-Rays become the DVD and something else replaces it.

Nostalgia for me though is either Beta tapes (the step right before VHS), video-disc (came in a hard shell that you entered into the machine and then it kept the disc in and you pulled the shell back out) and laser disc.

As a side note. The cleanest version of the Beauty and the Beast: Work in Progress (available on all DVD and Blu-Ray versions) was on the laserdisc. The DVD had awful black bars that would occur between scenes for some reason and that made it unwatchable for me. Those same black bars remain on the Blu-Ray, but have been cleaned up or removed from a large majority of the film. If you watch the laserdisc version, there are none what-so-ever and the film seemlessly changes from scene to scene with no interference at all.

Strange that an older format like the laserdisc has the cleaner and better quality than either the DVD (which replaced the laserdisc) or the Blu-Ray.

 

[BoarderPhreak]

Blu-ray is "the best." Period. But of course you can't beat VHS for it's affordability, the fact that it came first (and is now retro), etc.

But are CDs better than LPs? Now that's a different story and very much debatable.

 

[Zman-ks]

Blu-ray is "the best." Period. But of course you can't beat VHS for it's affordability, the fact that it came first (and is now retro), etc.

But are CDs better than LPs? Now that's a different story and very much debatable.

Agreed!

 

[Figments Friend]

.

But are CDs better than LPs? Now that's a different story and very much debatable.

The answer is *no bleeping way*.

Vinyl rules!

Okay, back to the topic at hand...

Dvd is handy...but i still play all of my old VHS tapes. Yep...i like it old school.
From a collectors standpoint, you should hold onto those old Disney VHS tapes. The older ones are one day going to become valuable collectibles ( some already are ) and people will always be interested in these old relics from the past.
Think about it : What makes a true collectible, and a valuable one at that, is always something eveyone had as a kid, but NO ONE bothered to save. Everyone just threw it out when it became old or outdated..and thus the few who DID save said items have money in the bank in the future. Look at the insane prices comic books and baseball cards go for as a example of this. The stuff nobody saves ends up in many cases to be the sought after collectibles worth large sums in the future.

VHS is not as crappy as some would make you believe. If you have a older tv, the picture quality holds up fine. It is only when you start getting into the massive wide flat screen tvs that you definately notice a step down in picture quality. No debate there...the bigger you go, the more you will notice the rough edges.

Also, VHS tape is a analog format..which means it holds a audio signal better then a digial format ( Google *Format Wars* for a real eye opening debate on this topic ). You might not believe it, but when i compared the two formats (VHS sound vs. Dvd sound ) the VHS won each time. It was louder and clearer in most cases when i played the same film.

But Dvd is handy.
Not interested in Blu-Ray.
I just see it as yet another format created as a excuse for film companies like Disney to try to sell me the exact same movies i already own yet again for the third+ time...

That is the REAL reason for all these *format changes*...ya know....

 

[Yert3]

Blu-ray. I only watch DVD if I absolutely have to. I went to blu-ray 3 years ago and I'm never going back.