It’s safe to say that we are currently in the heyday of at-home cinema. Not only have streaming services like Netflix given us endless binge-ability, but Hulu has made it possible to rewatch TV episodes the day after they air, and with Amazon you can instantly rent or buy just about any movie, anytime, anywhere. Compare that with just a couple years ago when bookcases had to be handed over to shelves of DVDs and choosing a movie for the evening meant making a trip to Blockbuster (which, if you were curious, still exists).
READ MORE: VHS, Film Culture, And How It Changed The Movie Landscape Forever
Now, to go way back, it’s easy to forget that a few decades ago that after a movie finished its theatrical run, it disappeared — maybe popping up on TV, maybe not. That is, until the advent of the VHS (Video Home System). While VHS, for some, might be best remembered as the shelf decorations at your local goodwill, for others it changed the landscape of movie-watching. It made it possible to rewatch a movie at will, to memorize your favorite scenes, and to binge (until the tape wore out, at least).
The only real problem with VHS was the godawful quality. Right? With the advent of 4K it’s easy to dismiss the analogue format, but is it really as bad as we all remember? Well, The 8-Bit Guy is here to get to the bottom of it in a new video essay, “VHS Tapes – Were They As Bad As We Remember?” And instead of just popping in some old tape from the attic, he employs the full-on scientific method, devising a way to fairly compare VHS video quality to video quality now and what it could have been back in the day (thankfully, he does his tests with the VHS classic “Back To The Future”). The results are, as you might guess, not very surprising. But still, it’s hard not to get nostalgic revisiting the very tactile experience of VHS. And for that, it’s well worth the watch.
Check out the video above and weigh in with your favorite VHS-related memories in the comments below. [AV Club]