When a video lover decides to convert VHS to DVD in Malden MA, he often wonders, with the continual improvement of video formats, if DVD is the right target format. After all, the work to convert VHS to DVD in Malden MA can be a moderate, even significant time and money investment, and it is a good idea to make sure that the conversion is not required again in a few years.
Video formats have gone through a number of advances since their inception. Original movies, gaining popular commercial acceptance in the 1920s, where captured as a series of black and white images, played at a rate of 30 fps (frames per second). Developing a movie was not unlike developing thousands of individual photographs. Home movie cameras and projectors did not come along for several decades. They were bulky affairs, and the result of their output would have a picture quality that is laughable compared to today’s photorealistic standards. However, at the time, movies were considered magical.
Home formats that incorporated color with high analog picture quality did not come along until the 1970s. Cameras that produced movies at that quality level came soon after. This was the first time that the technology to view and create movies at this level were available to the home consumer. However, there was a major standards war at that time between VHS and BetaMax. Many though BetaMax had the advantage, and lost their investment in BetaMax players and movies. Since that time, smaller improvements in VHS were mostly transparent to the public, and the standard endured until the popular acceptance of DVDs in the 1990s.
The change from analog VHS to digital DVDs produced a significant change in both picture and audio quality. In addition, there were benefits in larger capacity (4 hour movies could fit on a single disk), smaller size, and more robust media. For these reasons and others, it made sense for many movie owners to convert VHS to DVD in Malden MA.
However, in a comparatively short time, the industry came out with the Blu-Ray standard. This format offered a significant improvement to DVD. Homeowners wondered if they should wait for the advent of cost-effective consumer Blu-Ray recorders. Many felt that the Blu-Ray players, which also accommodated DVDs, would allow them to make the conversion to DVD without having to consider Blu-Ray. This is because the picture quality would be limited by the standards of VHS, and would have the same quality whether it was converted to DVD or Blu-Ray. They also wanted to make the conversion as quickly as possible, to preserve the VHS tapes in their current state. However, this remains a personal choice for videophiles.
