My family was pretty poor growing up, but we had cable. Back in the day there would occasionally be free weekends of Disney Channel, HBO and the like. Whenever there was one of those free weekends, my parents would buy a super long blank VHS tape and record hours of random movies. So for years every movie that I watched had an 800 number that would pop up every few minutes asking you to call and subscribe.
My dad would rent movies from blockbuster then set up the camcorder on a tripod to film the movie off the TV. It was always a big to-do since we all had to be quiet so we didn’t ruin the recording…
Tape speed / recording quality. Frames on VHS are diagonal stripes from one edge to the other. At lower tape speeds, those stripes get shorter and closer together. The horizontal resolution is unavoidably reduced. Color information gets muddy, because that’s some deep magic in a black-and-white signal. Adjacent frames can bleed into one another. Worst of all, you’re more likely to get tracking problems, where the ridiculous wheels-in-wheels of the diagonal / helical read mechanism get misaligned with the stripes, and the whole picture can drop out.
Nope. The tape travels a shorter distance in each 60th of a second, so there’s a steeper diagonal between the start and end of each frame. The whole magnetic pattern gets scrunched.
I think I don’t understand the stripes thing. so it’s a diagonal stripe. are the edges of the tape the sides of the screen or the top and bottom of the screen? what do you mean by steeper? is there a a gap between frames? how is the gap created? why would putting less information onto the tape (standard play vs long play) cause less readable data and lower quality? usually packing more into a given space makes quality worse.
I think we used a different term for it, so maybe that’s a regional abbreviation. But I’m thinking they were talking about the recording quality/speed. I remember there being two options, one gave you twice as many hours but the quality was lower.
This is the movie I thought of also. My copy was also from TV, but I did have it all on one tape with the exception that we were missing the first three or four minutes of the movie. Even today when I catch the beginning of the movie, I smile a little thinking of all the times I didn’t get to watch that.
Goonies, but it was recorded from TV and you had to switch tapes at about the pirate ship.
My family was pretty poor growing up, but we had cable. Back in the day there would occasionally be free weekends of Disney Channel, HBO and the like. Whenever there was one of those free weekends, my parents would buy a super long blank VHS tape and record hours of random movies. So for years every movie that I watched had an 800 number that would pop up every few minutes asking you to call and subscribe.
The more things change, the more they stay the same i guess. Sounds like just anout every streaming service out there today.
My dad would rent movies from blockbuster then set up the camcorder on a tripod to film the movie off the TV. It was always a big to-do since we all had to be quiet so we didn’t ruin the recording…
I’m going to assume you’re joking so I don’t go outside and scream into the middle distance.
The motivation combined with the complete lack of understanding of the tech is certainly interesting.
Jus make sure to close the blinds on the way out. Otherwise, there will be a glare on the screen.
That’s what you get for recording in SP.
What’s SP in this context?
Tape speed / recording quality. Frames on VHS are diagonal stripes from one edge to the other. At lower tape speeds, those stripes get shorter and closer together. The horizontal resolution is unavoidably reduced. Color information gets muddy, because that’s some deep magic in a black-and-white signal. Adjacent frames can bleed into one another. Worst of all, you’re more likely to get tracking problems, where the ridiculous wheels-in-wheels of the diagonal / helical read mechanism get misaligned with the stripes, and the whole picture can drop out.
You wrote a really long and interesting response that completely failed to answer the question. What’s SP in this context?
… the tape speed.
EDIT: You did it again
Phrased directly: What does SP stand for?
Standard Play, I think. Versus Long Play and Extended Play.
No idea why EP is sometimes called SLP. Wikipedia’s right there if you’re curious.
Wait wouldn’t stripes get longer the lower the tape speed?
Nope. The tape travels a shorter distance in each 60th of a second, so there’s a steeper diagonal between the start and end of each frame. The whole magnetic pattern gets scrunched.
I don’t understand what you’re saying.
Why would the stripes be longer, if the tape travels less distance, in the time it takes to make one stripe?
I think I don’t understand the stripes thing. so it’s a diagonal stripe. are the edges of the tape the sides of the screen or the top and bottom of the screen? what do you mean by steeper? is there a a gap between frames? how is the gap created? why would putting less information onto the tape (standard play vs long play) cause less readable data and lower quality? usually packing more into a given space makes quality worse.
I think we used a different term for it, so maybe that’s a regional abbreviation. But I’m thinking they were talking about the recording quality/speed. I remember there being two options, one gave you twice as many hours but the quality was lower.
From memory, SP was standard play, LP was long play, and SLP was super long play.
You could get 6 hours on a tape with SLP, but only 2 hours on SP.
Standard vs Long play.
This is the movie I thought of also. My copy was also from TV, but I did have it all on one tape with the exception that we were missing the first three or four minutes of the movie. Even today when I catch the beginning of the movie, I smile a little thinking of all the times I didn’t get to watch that.
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