Sometime the world progress means getting worse. Technology’experts’ say DVD is better than the analog tape. But when it comes to flexibility, features and quality control DVD SUCKS.
In the field of electronics, it seems companies and technology can get away by making people more stupid. The more stupid people become the more’progress’ has been made.
People were left to be happy low cost vs quality when membrane switches of 1990s were discontinued. Membrane push buttons were the best thing in TVs which were inherantly auto-standby. Now a days you have to happy with mechanical switches because cheap is best. In most cases, when power goes of when you watch TV, when the power comes back, the TVs(all except Sansui) comes on by itself - not a good thing at night. That is a’cool’ feature? Great technology?
DVD is the best example where progress is made by making the people more stupid.
Following are the salient "features" of DVD:
1) Regional zone setting because of a highly value feature called copy protection.
2) Inability to record TV programs and inability to schedule recordings.
3) Limited re-rewrites of DVD media.
4) Interactive DVDs inflicted with failures - not working when you put in on a computer.
5) Lack of resistance from scratches.
6)If the DVD is removed and shifted; you are RESET!
To start off, the following is are’bad’ thing about video cassettes/VHS/VCRs
1)Sequential nature.
2)Analog pictures - quality low compared to digital -> See below; why its not always true.
The trump card of VCR
1)Record anytime; schedule a TV recording; go out or watch anything else - it is done in the background.
2)Re-recordability ANY NUMBER OF TIMES.
3)No copy right; no regions. With Multistandard VCRs NTSC and PAL is not an issue.
4)Bookmarkability - you continue where you stopped.
5)Protected tape; you can drop the video cassette; the tape is protected. No scratches.
6)Cheaper servicability; video heads are cheaper than DVD lens assemblies.
People say digital is great; but there is a slight problem with DVDs. DVD is based on MPEG protocol. MPEG4 is better than MPEG2. But getting to the point. Detailed pictures dont render well on DVDs. You may not see the problem with movies. But when you watch sports recording, get some time to see the spectators or anything which has a lot of detail. Those boxes in the picture make digital picture great! Hee hee! That is where DVD’s digital touch is.
Moral of the story - > ANALOG RULES QUALITY, but digital fools. VHS is still very popular but unfortunately outside India. If you want a VCR, you would have to import from Amazon or other places. That is because our great retailers in India went’hi-tech’. Double-deck VHS with DVD will be the trend going forward(again unfortunately not available in India).