Metropol

I'm probably going to sound incredibly archaic talking about VHS tapes but I thought I might ask anyway.

On my VHS machine I notice an intresting little birdy called "Rental PB" (I assume, Rental Playback). My trawls on the internet have found very little, apart from that it "improves picture quality on worn tapes".

Anyone have any ideas on just what this is? I expect it rewinds the video casette, too, but I haven't had the time to try it out!

-ddC

I guess the rental playback facility automatically plays the pre recorded tape as soon as it is inserted into the video recorder (indicated by the broken tab on the front) and also rewinds it at the end?

Thank goodness we've now moved onto DVD's, and in a few more years mini-dvd's which are almost indestructable!

Jamez wrote:Thank goodness we've now moved onto DVD's, and in a few more years mini-dvd's which are almost indestructable!

Definitely.. but you'll notice these days you get DVDs from rental th that look like they've been through a tumble dryer!

It's amazing how much you actually have to do to CDs and DVDs to stop them working, though. In a recent test of mine I had to create several visible scratches over the centre written area of a CD before it would no longer play without skips, and even more before it wouldn't play outright.

By the way, as far as audio goes, what's the future? Is it MiniDiscs -- they, frankly, still seem inferior to CDs.

The future involves no discs at all.

You'll be able to rent a movie on your TV without leaving the house. Before long your computer and television will be integrated together, so in around a decade (or more likely less!) you'll have a 42" plasma which will display HDTV pictures aswell as being able to surf the internet, download files, play your music etc from a box the size of a DVD player we have now.

So, the future is being able to rent DVD's by either having them streamed to you over the internet with a 50-100 Mbit connection, or having them sent down digital cable/satellite.

Personally, I can't wait. Having TV/Computer all on one system will be far better in my opinion!

Jamez wrote:The future involves no discs at all.

You'll be able to rent a movie on your TV without leaving the house. Before long your computer and television will be integrated together, so in around a decade (or more likely less!) you'll have a 42" plasma which will display HDTV pictures aswell as being able to surf the internet, download files, play your music etc from a box the size of a DVD player we have now.

So, the future is being able to rent DVD's by either having them streamed to you over the internet with a 50-100 Mbit connection, or having them sent down digital cable/satellite.

Personally, I can't wait. Having TV/Computer all on one system will be far better in my opinion!

50-100Mbit internet connection in the UK. Dream on. Either that or you will be able to have a 100Mbit connection but with 5Gb cap, knowing what BT are like. Call me cynical, but I don't see much changing with them, especially when it comes to moving onto new technologies.

CDs are fragile in my opinion and in the case of the ones I've borrowed from the library, some are scratched beyond belief. Some of them play fine, whilst others skip/pop like mad or don't play at all.

By the way, as far as audio goes, what's the future? Is it MiniDiscs -- they, frankly, still seem inferior to CDs.

Physically, the minidisc is a good invention - it has a case on the outside to prevent the disc inside from being scratched accidentally, but the compression is not too good in this "digital" age when digital TV and radio is compressed to hell and back - so much so that the BBC have decided to cut down on the number of machines they have, or phase them out as they upgrade their studios and facilities.

You can get CDs in 'cart' format, but the players and cartridges are extremely bulky.

I think we are seeing a gradual shift towards hard disk and flash based storage. Although audio quality seems to be going down the pan with the "ipod generation".

Well don't, have an audio conversation, then you get the added bonus of singing along.

I look foward to the day when I can have a sodding great plasma where I can watch TV and use my PC at the same time (split screen option perhaps?).

Nothing is impossible, and nor is a 50-100 Mbit internet connection. Afterall, those kind of speeds are already the norm in a couple of countries now!!

Wasn't the Rental Playback option the button on expensive machines to have sync pulse generation switched on in the machine itself, rather than trying to use the (possibly missing) ones on a knackered old tape?

Very useful for taking a seventeenth generation copy off a sixteenth generation porn video, SO I'M TOLD.