thespirit3
Standard Member
- Joined
- Dec 16, 2004
- Messages
- 44
- Reaction score
- 1
- Points
- 37
Hi,
After uncovering a stash of VHS tapes I'm looking to get back into the format. However, many (many!) years ago I owned a stereo (linear) VCR and I remember the vast majority of commercial VHS tapes had linear stereo soundtracks. Looking at things now, it seems HiFi stereo replaced the linear stereo format.
My questions are:-
1. Roughly, what percentage of tapes contain linear vs 'HiFi' stereo?
2. Do HiFi cassettes also contain a linear-stereo soundtrack?
3. Are any VCRs available that can play both formats?
My movie interests are varied both in terms of genre and age. I'm looking to recover stereo audio on as many cassettes as possible, even if the solution isn't necessarily the best quality (for example, I'd rather have linear-stereo on most cassettes, than HiFi on a small selection and mono on the majority).
edit: Modified as I seemed to mix up HiFi/NICAM in my original post, due to some VHS cassettes stating 'NICAM' (I assume these are actually HiFi encoded).
Thanks!
Steve
After uncovering a stash of VHS tapes I'm looking to get back into the format. However, many (many!) years ago I owned a stereo (linear) VCR and I remember the vast majority of commercial VHS tapes had linear stereo soundtracks. Looking at things now, it seems HiFi stereo replaced the linear stereo format.
My questions are:-
1. Roughly, what percentage of tapes contain linear vs 'HiFi' stereo?
2. Do HiFi cassettes also contain a linear-stereo soundtrack?
3. Are any VCRs available that can play both formats?
My movie interests are varied both in terms of genre and age. I'm looking to recover stereo audio on as many cassettes as possible, even if the solution isn't necessarily the best quality (for example, I'd rather have linear-stereo on most cassettes, than HiFi on a small selection and mono on the majority).
edit: Modified as I seemed to mix up HiFi/NICAM in my original post, due to some VHS cassettes stating 'NICAM' (I assume these are actually HiFi encoded).
Thanks!
Steve
Last edited: