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How was film put on VHS back in the day?


Daniel D. Teoli Jr.

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I'm pretty sure they always used telecine machines, which are basically the same process they use today. Back then they did have another machine, which was a projector with a CRT camera built-in, but they were pretty shitty. I doubt any studio vhs masters were done that way. Maybe for the porn industry or some low budget movies, but not the studio films. The telecine machines automatically did the 3:2 pulldown and outputted 29.97i. 

So basically an IP or IN of the film would be dropped off to a facility with the matching magnetic audio. They would do a scene by scene grade and real-time transfer to a 2" or 1" video tape machine. Then they would transfer the audio separately using "insert" edits on to the videotape.  The final tape would have all of the content that would go onto the VHS tape. 

The duplicating system was quite simple as well, they'd simply had a bunch of VHS machines in a room and load tapes into them. There was a master start button where they would start recording, first black and then it would auto switch to the 2" or 1" master. Over the years, the only major differences is the addition of digital telecine machines and digital video tape machines, which took over in the late 80's/early 90's. High Definition would have come around the same time where they would have made HD masters for SD releases. 

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Telecine to an intermediate format then duplication with VHS copy banks - essentially the same process that existed for the popular life of VHS.

The very earliest telecines would have used specially-struck low-contrast prints. Since these would have been colour-corrected in the same way as a release print, less colour correction would be applied at the telecine stage - ideally just a set up and let it run.

As telecines and the associated technology advanced through the 80s, it became more possible to transfer directly from negative, which produced better pictures but required scene by scene colour correction.

When digital intermediate became commonplace, naturally the VHS would have been derived from files, even on film-originated stuff.

Beyond that it's been basically the same process up to the present day.

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well VHS really did not come into prevalence till the early 80's despite being released in 1977.

Films were probably transferred to an intermediate tape format from a Rank-Cintel Mk3 Flying spot CRT Telecine.

The master tape  (quad, etc) was then  sent by a video Distribution Amp to a rack of VHS recorders...

Porn drove this effort....

 

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7 hours ago, Robert Houllahan said:

well VHS really did not come into prevalence till the early 80's despite being released in 1977.

Films were probably transferred to an intermediate tape format from a Rank-Cintel Mk3 Flying spot CRT Telecine. 

The master tape  (quad, etc) was then  sent by a video Distribution Amp to a rack of VHS recorders...

Porn drove this effort....

 

Thanks for the info!  Glad they saved something about the machine...

http://www.earlytelevision.org/rank_cintel_crt.html

Does anyone know what were the first VHS movies made for sale? (regular or X rated)

I have a book called The X Rated Videotape Guide. It has some early 1970's and lots of mid 1970's x VHS tapes listed. But the dates may be when the films were made and not when the video was made.

I started to collect some of the earliest VHS porn in my archive. Trying to see how things were when they made the switch from film to VHS. I had a list of 166 titles of mid 1970's listed X VHS tapes to hunt down. I maybe found tapes for 20% of what was on the list. And the ones I would find were mainly singe examples of the titles with no box and in fair looking condition. For me, I just trashed most of my VHS tape collection when moving over to DVD. Too bulky, too low Q image and not worth anything to sell. So I can see how lots of history was just trashed. 

When I first started to collect the VHS porn I didn't have the guide book to go by. So I bought big lots of VHS porn. I paid about .40 cents to .60 cents per tape in bulk, with boxes and in nice shape. (Media mail shipping cost more than the tapes!) Only problem with that is, out of the 3 lots totaling over 120+  tapes I purchased, I didn't get anything usable for my specs of early 1970's VHS porn.

When I got the The X Rated Videotape Guide I could see what was made and look for that specifically. The single tapes were a lot more expensive. They were not worth the $5 to $12 I had to pay for each tape. But it is not a big deal, so  overpaid to put them in my archive. (I have not got as far to test them to see how they play. I just started collecting the early X VHS over the last couple month.) 

I got interested in VHS, in a small way, after watching Rewind This. My only interest with VHS collecting is the early era X films when 8mm and 16mm porn films transitioned to VHS

 The X Rated Videotape Guide I have is the first revised edition of 1986 / 1984. At the time it was written, the book said that 50% of the VHS tapes made commercially were for the porn industry. From what I gather, VHS has died out even more with collectors. I checked on the links mentioned in Rewind This and things looked to have gone downhill.

 

 

Edited by Daniel D. Teoli Jr.
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I worked in a family video store back in the mid 90s that was known to have the largest porn collection in North America. We had around 100,000 VHS tapes (that number is a bit fuzzy- could be more or less). We also had family movies, etc. to rent. You could either buy or rent the tapes we had. Place was open 24 hours. Toms Video.

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On 8/13/2019 at 6:35 AM, Tyler Purcell said:

So basically an IP or IN of the film would be dropped off to a facility with the matching magnetic audio. They would do a scene by scene grade and real-time transfer to a 2" or 1" video tape machine. Then they would transfer the audio separately using "insert" edits on to the videotape.  The final tape would have all of the content that would go onto the VHS tape. 

The workflow could be somewhat more complex than this for shows that were shot on film but didn't go thru a film finish; i.e. your typical commercial, music video, industrial film, or tv show. If there was significant editing to do (in the linear editing era, or before NLE could take you to final) there would be an offline edit done in advance and an online conform session. It was all very complicated and expensive. 

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1 hour ago, Webster C said:

The workflow could be somewhat more complex than this for shows that were shot on film but didn't go thru a film finish; i.e. your typical commercial, music video, industrial film, or tv show. If there was significant editing to do (in the linear editing era, or before NLE could take you to final) there would be an offline edit done in advance and an online conform session. It was all very complicated and expensive. 

You mean non-film conforms. Yea, but I made the assumption the OP was talking about "movies" not short-form. Most short form would simply have a master tape that's duped and that dupe will go to the duplication house. So it's actually a WAY easier process. 

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21 hours ago, Webster C said:

The workflow could be somewhat more complex than this for shows that were shot on film but didn't go thru a film finish; i.e. your typical commercial, music video, industrial film, or tv show. If there was significant editing to do (in the linear editing era, or before NLE could take you to final) there would be an offline edit done in advance and an online conform session. It was all very complicated and expensive. 

You would still end up with a Master Tape to be duplicated - regardless if the source is telecine or a linear VT edit session or hybrid. 

The first couple of corporate jobs I worked on, had bulk VHS tapes made. At that time we would provide them with a Beta-SP master.

I made a batch of 100 VHS's for my first short film in 2002 to send to festivals etc..DVCAM was used for the duplication master.  At the time short run DVD was still very expensive

In the 80's it mostly would have been 3/4" U-Matic as duplication master, its more robust then VHS, but would have been easy to automat on the recorder banks. 

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1 hour ago, Phil Connolly said:

I made a batch of 100 VHS's for my first short film in 2002 to send to festivals etc..DVCAM was used for the duplication master.  At the time short run DVD was still very expensive

VHS was dead for us around that time. I was doing digital (digibetacam) deliverables for DVD duplication for a while at Digital Post in Boston. We  had our own "superdrive" to make DVD's in the office. I think we were one of the first companies to afford one in town. I don't remember the pricing sadly, but I don't remember it being grossly expensive to duplicate. I shot a feature in 2003 that was mass duplicated on DVD for peanuts. 

Edited by Tyler Purcell
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21 minutes ago, Tyler Purcell said:

VHS was dead for us around that time. I was doing digital (digibetacam) deliverables for DVD duplication for a while at Digital Post in Boston. We  had our own "superdrive" to make DVD's in the office. I think we were one of the first companies to afford one in town. I don't remember the pricing sadly, but I don't remember it being grossly expensive to duplicate. I shot a feature in 2003 that was mass duplicated on DVD for peanuts. 

Thanks for the history.  VHS was making the transition at that time, but still had a few years left before dying.

The last confirmed VHS release by a major studio in North America occurred on March 14th, 2006. The film was A History Of Violence. It looked like this: However, there is a persistent rumour about a VHS release of Disney's film Cars, which supposedly came out in February of 2007 and was a club exclusive.

https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-first-and-last-films-to-be-distributed-on-VHS

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11 minutes ago, Daniel D. Teoli Jr. said:

Thanks for the history.  VHS was making the transition at that time, but still had a few years left before dying.

The last confirmed VHS release by a major studio in North America occurred on March 14th, 2006. The film was A History Of Violence. It looked like this: However, there is a persistent rumour about a VHS release of Disney's film Cars, which supposedly came out in February of 2007 and was a club exclusive.

https://www.quora.com/What-were-the-first-and-last-films-to-be-distributed-on-VHS

You can't give them away in the UK now. I've taken dozens to the rubbish tip recently- they can't even be recycled. I kept "Dune", "Horse Feathers" and "Captain Scarlet" though. Still got a working player- I even rented it out the other week.

Edited by Mark Dunn
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VHS is a very funny format. It had worse signal to noise than it's competition. The quality of the machines was lower than the competition. The prices in some cases were even higher. The only thing that made VHS survive was the tape length, being able to record 2, 4 or 6 hours vs 1, 3 and 5 was a big deal. That little bit of extra time was just enough to make it more successful. 

I was using laserdisc's for pre-recorded material since 1993 and held on to LD until DVD became more popular and slowly made the switch. I was 100% digital for both capturing and distribution by 1999. 

Now there is a "retro" movement of people buying and collecting VHS tapes of movies and I'm like, eh really? 

 

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My vhs run was very much on the tail end. But we were still using vhs as late 2006 in channel 4. For off air recordings, with long play you get 8 hours per tape. So a day would fit on 3 tapes. It was heaven when they moved over to servers to record the feed.

DVD came in very quick and I spent many of my early years as an edit assistant doing battle with dvd-rduplicators and inkjet dvd label printers which were a nightmare. Nothing worse then a dvd not closing while the courier bike is waiting and you have to run it again off tape to make a new copy. I dont miss linear times

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3 hours ago, Phil Connolly said:

My vhs run was very much on the tail end. But we were still using vhs as late 2006 in channel 4. For off air recordings, with long play you get 8 hours per tape. So a day would fit on 3 tapes. It was heaven when they moved over to servers to record the feed.

I worked at a TV station around the same time and we were recording all the broadcast to DVD with a low quality 12hr setting. 

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We skipped DVD and went direct to server.

The VHS's were a pain, we had 4 channels and 2 + 1 hour repeat channels and the main channel had several regions. 

So you'd have to label up 30(ish) tapes per day and remember to swop them.

We were doing DVD-R's for viewing copies of the digi-beta broadcast masters, but for some reason never updated the VHS's. They lasted until we went to tapeless transmission and recorded direct of the broadcast server.  

In 2003 we were running live to Air off Digi-Beta in an Auto-loader - by 2005 it went over to server. HD was always off server with Broadcast deliverables on HDCAM-SR.

There was something satisfying and tactile about a tape workflow.

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