VHS generation loss

[ulises83]

5:54 i seen nipple.

[imagods]

Switching from 23 generation to first it's like press ULTRA HD button :)

[MatameVideos]

you wouldn't believe how much I enjoyed this. I love video, it's why I do for the living, although I work with digital, analog vhs and tapes have a nostalgic feeling that can't be compared

[phoxetis]

pretty interesting experiment :)

[TheDevilinKing]

23rd generation.....the RING!

[truthIsStranger]

I... Feel... H.A.P.P.Y....

You cannot grasp the true form of Giygas' attack!

[taintedtapper]

YO dawg i herd u liek vhs tapes so i put a vhs tape within a vhs tape so you can vhs while you vhs

[shaun991000]

What is that tape called?

[lazrpo]

@shaun991000 It's the chorus to the Roxette song "Fading Like a Flower".

[turtlliwdnifuoyehthr]

its like watching a dead body slowly rotting

[MattVariety]

@turtlliwdnifuoyehthr You've read too many creepypastas.

[Sp4RkyMcG7]

Longest... chorus... ever...

[DrSneakyEagle]

VHSeption

[IElrekkaI]

Who else thought it was extremely satisfying to start the video back up after all that?

[deekgeek]

You, who watched this tape, are going to die in one week from now. There's only one way to survive. And that is-

[PURCorp]

Still better than digital

[BranislavTheOfficial]

Pretty much what the song title says, the VHS quality faded away like a flower.

Oh, the irony...

[ericrichard7]

Wow, the old VHS quality. I believe it depends on the quality of tapes too.

[dojomojomofo]

This is why before about 2000, home piracy really wasn't competing with the real product. Dubbed tapes looked (or sounded) worse and worse, so if you wanted the best product, you'd buy the real one. Now... you can get HD video about as good as the source copy without even getting up!

[NewYorkS4U]

My "Media Studies" college professor showed us this video tonight to support his lecture on the quality of VHS tapes. When we were watching, I was feeling nerve-wrecking, as if I was witnessing a slow death. I think my feeling is normal : \

[Idkwutmyusernameis]

@NewYorkS4U

Yeah when I was watching this in class, I felt the same way.

Moral of the story? Don't copy VHS tapes over and over again lol.

[Tomsonic41]

I saw a demonstration like this on TV long ago, but they had to point a camera at a TV screen (back then, the bad sync would play havoc with the broadcast equipment). Nice to see a demonstration like this with direct feed video. Did you use a time base corrector to stop the picture rolling?

[m1cke1983]

@Tomsonic41 No, I suppose the VCRs have a built-in time base corrector of some kind, but I didn't use any external equipment. Only two VCRs connected with a SCART cable.

[sparticus214]

@Tomsonic41 yea well thats most caused by scanlines but a lcd demastarion works perfact same thing happend with the highscore page for nes in nintendo power

[jherwynne]

and on the 24th generation, you will see "The Ring" ehehehehe!!!!

[owenthemedia]

Thanks much for uploading and performing the tests

[thepatcat]

Now all you need to do is use the sort of DSP software employed on the CSI shows, and you can regain the original quality and then some.

[SilverMcdowell1992]

Copyright protection, the old fashioned way.

[nw5111]

wow. I still like vhs though

[MrTechReviews101]

@ Generation 15 what are those 2 black bars on the bottom called, I've been wanting to know that for years.

[jjovereats]

@MrTechReviews101 at the very bottom? head switch noise. at the top and bottom? widescreen letterbox.

[AMisplacedBoy]

Oddly fascinating...how much did you hate Roxette by the time you were done with this?

[m1cke1983]

@AMisplacedBoy Haha, I really like Roxette, even after this little experiment :)

[iTouchin]

I couldn't really watch to the end cause the fear of RING coming out of my laptop screen was to great. Well great errr half video! :D

[MrTechReviews101]

@iTouchin RING?

[whotaughtyou]

ORIGINAL CUBA PASSPORT

[paulalien]

This was great thanks 4 the upload ;-)

[psxdriverplayer]

I heard some sounds in 23th generation

[Randomaited]

I wonder what Betamax generation loss is like...

[BigRedUnderpants1]

Wow, that's amazing!

[itsabomberscope]

This is just like life, in the end - we end up as bad copys of ourselves.

[albertusj]

I wonder how many generations the BEST of the analog broadcast formats could go through before one notice degradation....

[wado1942]

@albertusj I've never put it to the test since I only have access to one 1" Type-C recorder, but supposedly they can go through four generations before being able to see the difference. I know some people have taken it as far as ten generations and say it's still acceptable. The audio I know drops a little more in quality than the video. I might try Betacam SP some day if I can do it all RGB. I expect the audio/video noise to increase pretty quickly, but fewer smearing/timebase issues.

[albertusj]

Thank you. Very interesting...and I like Roxette.

[tselvarikov]

It's like watching a terminally ill man die very slowly. Educating, but creepy in the same vein.

[mrfoxboy]

yes. sounds like you're only playing back baseband audio at 2nd gen

[Chianagirl]

This may be stupid question but at generation 16 when he played his guitar before "tell me why" why did it skip

[murphy54000]

I want to see the 200th gen or something.

Also, this degrades like pokemon does. coincidence, I THINK NOT!

[skynet091287]

At generation 10, it looks like a B/W movie redone in oldschool 3D :)

[Sismiques]

Recording with an input that has less loss than composite, such as S-video can help.

[wakaratwakawaka]

@sygo7g Yeah, but if something easily goes very wrong, you can lose it completely!

[JMein13074]

How long does it take for the average VHS tape to age a generation (both light and heavy playback)?

[Chianagirl]

@SuperCoolDude2014 same after 10th you can't see maries head lol

[donottakethisname]

Roxette, fuck yeah.

[SuperCoolDude2014]

omg thats some hot static gen. 8-23 and generation 10 i cant see maries head

[Chianagirl]

ouch....aftr gentration 10 you cant see maries head anymore

[ChuckTaylorBoy321]

Thank god for the blu ray, and i hate vhs

[andyhoofit]

the song is quite appropriate actually

[Airomist]

@andyhoofit too right amigo, and yes actually that was very painful to watch, (given i grew up with vhs)

[MrShmetel]

sadness

[veggiet2009]

the interesting thing for me is that the sound quality has a sharp drop after the first dub, and then it seems to only gradually degrade after that

[m1cke1983]

@veggiet2009 Yep, the reason for this is that only one of the VCRs are NICAM (stereo). After the first copy, the sound is mono.

[monty78pig]

@m1cke1983 To elaborate on this a bit more, the sound in the NICAM system managed to yield surprising high fidelity, 20Hz - 20Khz @ approx 70dB, by frequency modulating the audio track and placing it "underneath" (on a lower frequency) than the frequency modulated chroma and luma which made up the video signal. Older, or less sophisticated VHS use a linear track with the audio recorded onto it achieving only about 50Hz -10KHz @ 50dB or less if the heads were dirty, which they frequently were.

[jjovereats]

@monty78pig In Hi-Fi you mean?

[jjovereats]

@m1cke1983 Did you mean: Hi-Fi?

[laurdy]

generation loss is worst on formats like u-matic, but formats like quadruplex have very little generation loss

[Chianagirl]

Stupid thing to say but that did look painful...

[cr1901]

Stupid question, but... what do you mean by "sync" problems at generation 14 (as I recall, sync means many things to me, and I think it can refer to multiple things for VHS tapes)... horizontal sync? AV sync?

[m1cke1983]

@cr1901 I was referring to the horizontal sync

[AnimeFanPan]

good you can put vhs to dvd and on to your computer as a video file

[1990chrism]

I remember Disney use to use an effect like this to care people into avoiding pirate copy's, surely any pirate with common sense would just keep copying from the original instead of copying copy's.

[Chianagirl]

per rocks! It's a shame after 20th gen his guitar after fading like a flower cant be seen

[Chianagirl]

Thanks for uploading this to be honest this what got me into roxette so thank you from Rhiannon :)

[Chianagirl]

At 10th gen you can see maries head lol

[SimolinCherobee]

After around generation 5,I couldn't think of a better music video to slowly,incrementally destroy."Everytime I see you.......tell me why,everytime I see you..........tell my why......eygrbdieirj uwvdiw 726382847.........$:);&/$;$" Neat upload!

[rosamenkman]

why is the embedding disabled? thats a shame!!

[m1cke1983]

@rosamenkman

It's enabled now!

[rosamenkman]

Super nice! Thank you so much i think this video is a great! @m1cke1983

[rtbvhsrip]

Could you try this with a TBC in between? Color subcarrier should not get lost and also synchronization signals. Image quality will degrade, but picture should stay stable.

[MRLOL785]

5th generation is what most people think of VHS

[oliver8bit]

7th generation is my favorite, kinda wish 20th gen coulda been in color, then it woulda been my favorite

[MRLOL785]

@oliver8bit Why? 1st Generation's my favorite :P

[mikerichardson]

I think the degradation is exacerbated by the use of two different machines. I wonder if two of the same machine would fare better?

[m1cke1983]

@mikerichardson

I have tried this previously with two identical VCRs. The result was about the same.

[Carthsting]

Every time I see you, oh I try to hide away

but when you leave it seems I can't let go

Everytime you leave the room I feel I'm fading like a flower

Tell me why

[dickcheney6]

Also, I think this is a good choice of song for this demonstration- the tape is fading like a flower! :)

[Chianagirl]

Pers gitar sounds like it's stuck in the VHS

NeW nEw new

[Chianagirl]

You can give the VHS to somone for chrismas =D

[dickcheney6]

It kind of looks like the life of an individual tape is flashing before it's eyes- like the 2nd is the same as one that's just starting to go downhill

[captmanonymous]

sexy

[rosamenkman]

I wish I could embed this on my blog

[Chianagirl]

make that 4:57 genertion 17

[Chianagirl]

holy opps hey 3:42 & 4:50 scarded the crap out of me

[Chianagirl]

5:00 scared the shit out of me O_O

[Chianagirl]

I think at the end she just died

[Carthsting]

Such a song...

[CasinAandC]

how come the audio quality isn't going down as fast?

[thomasmhyttel]

Hi - how did you transfer the vhsvideo to digital?

(I’ve tried once to transfer from vhs to minidv but it looks not exactly the same)

[kargaroc386]

13th iteration is where the noise in the sound starts to get annoying

[raymieX]

Would the colors fade at the same time if the video were NTSC and the VCRs were NTSC?

[mudkiprules4]

the reason is cause when you copy a tape it drops the quality gradually and when you copy a copy it copies the bad quality of the first copy and drops it even more yeah i know. weird

[BlueNeon81]

it would be interesting to see/hear degradation if you use both hifi stereo vcr's

[davismv]

Very interesting. Growing up in the 80's and all through the 90's, I dubbed many many videos and never realized what it took for the picture quality to degrade.

In EP/SLP mode, the picture would have likely gone bad much sooner.

Thanks for the experiment.

[manyvideoinerests]

This is VHS, and I wonder if the results would be the same in Betamax? I have two machines, but don't know what would happen after20 + copies.

[Teraforce88]

Try it and see!

I'd imagine that the generation loss won't degrade as much as VHS (but it will still degrade).

AFAIK, most of my Betamax tapes that were given to me were copies from VHS, made using the Beta III (lowest quality) mode. Even after 20+ years of non-ideal storage conditions, the quality of them is not bad at all (the colors are a bit flat and the picture is a bit soft, but much better than what I'd expect from VHS)

[manyvideoinerests]

Well, I copy stuff and go from VHS to Beta. I have a VHS tape that is about 25 years old, and I'm sure the picture has degraded on it! I'm talking about both the original recording and th accidental record over my grandfather and I made.

[pat1981lux]

wow. that is obvious. dont you have anything better to do than to show us that?

[manyvideoinerests]

I also noticed that the audio started todeminish as well.

[Rogueofmv]

They say that when you reach 50 generations, you can see God...

[manyvideoinerests]

What has been seen?

[LexManSubs]

Absolutely fantastic!

[1990chrism]

stereo goes str8 after the first duplication. is one of the vcrs mono?

[m1cke1983]

Yes, one of the VCRs is a mono one.

[scarletcinema]

very fu*king nice. Thank you. ah so perfect ... swept away by 23...but to where? ...um...I'm telling James Randi! ...Paranormal activity starts at 18. unless its just Me, in which case, a TRUE paranormal XxXperience. hee. and if you dont believe me, just ask my camera! piXxX to follow...

[Sadsic]

this must what it feel like to be old and then die

[AnalogueJosh]

That's really creepy, it's almost as if she is fading away...

[KahnBB6]

I get nearly the same impression. To me it's like she and the band are getting further absorbed into a cacophony of magnetic noise on the tape. They are in there somewhere but almost impossible to find...

[BlueNeon81]

@AnalogueJosh ...fading like a flower :D

[SlimeTron5000]

Would copying the first generation per use reduce generation loss?

[alphamone]

i wonder if you would get interlacing artifacts if you did this with NTSC videos.

(as a lifetime use of PAL video, watching anything with interlacing, either 1080i video mode, or just an NTSC encoded dvd, the interlacing realy gets to me)

[Quakmaor]

The 20th generation is creepy

[Tekkenfreek234]

@Quakmaor From 20 - 23 is like a scene from The Ring.

[rtbvhsrip]

Can you try some generations to digitize on equipment containing a TBC? To see if sync problems can be solved by TBC.

I had some "unwatchable" childrens tapes that i preserved by TBC enabled DV-digitizer, and the results are very good (you can see it on my channel)

[Wurm1220]

super!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[noreflection]

Never realized it would do this. Makes sense now. I was a younger and didn't understand but now it makes sense. We used to record over stuff all the time and I never knew why it would go out of color and such. Very cool experiment

[Chasmodon]

Whooooa.

Was every successive generation recorded on unused VHS tape? And does it really matter?

[m1cke1983]

Two previously used tapes were used in this experiment..

[segadreamcast1994]

on some of the generations you did not explain what was happening will you run me through each generation so i can understand what is happening? thanks

[teamascii]

@Chasmodon Yes, if it was on the same tape in a recorded area, the quality would degrade faster

[czelecco87]

Nice example, must have taken a lot of time and patience to do this. Thanks ! :=)

[kargaroc386]

if you keep doing it, it will eventually get to where there is ABSOLUTELY no signal left. it would just be static

[poeticphantom]

Thank goodness for VHS, this is beautiful. The medium of vhs needs to live on. Thank you for posting.

[Attmay]

Ouch! Thank God and Toshiba for DVD.

[ACEDcomputers]

@Attmay And sony...

[secondchance1977]

That is why I got a VHS to DVD device!

[CorpusHermeticum]

thanx for taking the time to do this!