Hi, I just spent the day listening to some oldish videos which I recorded a few years ago.
Some off Satelite some off Terrestial IE: Rod Stewart unplugged, Phil Collins unplugged, Elton John Live concert with Ray "the mad percussionist"Cooper, recorded from the Disney channel.
I wanted to try out DolbyPro11 to see what they were like all of them sound great, much better quality than some CD's I have. What sort of Bitrate would they be in comparison to cd's?
I recorded Pink Floyd Live at Earls court a few years back on BBC1 I think it was, played it today and the sound is brilliant.
The reason I am asking is I have noticed on a few forums recently people talking of upsampling, and 24/96 or 24/192, I know video tape is an inferior format but at the end of the day it must surely come down to the quality of the music (production, sound engineering) not bitrates etc...
I have around 450 cd's including Classical, Rock, Country, Reggae, Easy listening. I would say that half of them are LOWER quality recordings than the videos I have listened to today. Some are so bad that I haven't played them for years.
I even put the "Live-aid" concert on which was origionally recorded in July 1985 and it sounds better than many CD's I have
so do bitrates really matter?

You cannot improve on the quality of the original source by upsampling, only by later digital processing (some of which is questionable).

There are so many components that affect the quality of the final signal you hear that true comparisons have to be very rigidly controlled.

[Reiner]

What sort of Bitrate would they be in comparison to cd's?

Well, if it's an old VHS tape the recording is analog and hence no bitrate applies here. The good thing is those recordings aren't compressed either.

The reason I am asking is I have noticed on a few forums recently people talking of upsampling, and 24/96 or 24/192, I know video tape is an inferior format but at the end of the day it must surely come down to the quality of the music (production, sound engineering) not bitrates etc...

Partially correct and IMHO tape is mostly inferior only because it wears of and the picture quality isn't that good when compared to DVD - but then we are not talking about PQ here.
Upsampling will not do much good and unfortunately most pop/rock CDs are poorly mastered and sound like the word I am not allowed to type here.

I have around 450 cd's including Classical, Rock, Country, Reggae, Easy listening. I would say that half of them are LOWER quality recordings than the videos I have listened to today. Some are so bad that I haven't played them for years.

Could well be true (see above) though I assume the dynamic of the CD will top the tape recording, i.e. there is a pro and con to both.

[slingshot]

Could well be true (see above) though I assume the dynamic of the CD will top the tape recording, i.e. there is a pro and con to both.

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the dynamic range of VHS was 20Hz - 20KHz, which would be the same as CD.

A few years ago (after my tape player died on me) I made some compilations on VHS leave playing at parties (3 hrs non stop music so I could get drunk without having to worry about changing CD's every 40 minutes. And I was quite impressed with the quality.

[Reiner]

I vaguely remember reading somewhere that the dynamic range of VHS was 20Hz - 20KHz, which would be the same as CD.

That's the frequency range and is indeed equal to CD. Dynamic range is different, put simply it means how fast can it go from quiet to (very) loud. Analog recordings / playback are / is usually somewhat limited in that regard.
I (my parents actually) used to have a hifi-stereo VCR and indeed music recordings sounded pretty good then but the CD "won" due to the convenience. At least at the time I wasn't really aware of recording qualities and perhaps the old stereo system wasn't good enought to reveal those.