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From: phil@diablo.amd.com (Phil Ngai)
Newsgroups: rec.video,sci.electronics
Subject: Re: S-VHS this generation's Beta?
Message-ID: <26328@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 12 Jul 89 19:59:32 GMT
References: <2727@blake.acs.washington.edu> <692@lopez.UUCP> <26267@amdcad.AMD.COM> <18565@sequent.UUCP>
Sender: news@amdcad.AMD.COM
Reply-To: phil@diablo.AMD.COM (Phil Ngai)
Organization: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Sunnyvale CA
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In article <18565@sequent.UUCP> roc@crg2.UUCP (Ron Christian) writes:
|Ok.  These cheap S-VHS decks.  How's the image quality?  Is it as
|noticeably better vs. standard VHS as the high priced decks?  If
|not, what's the degradation?

I would expect that you will find variations from brand to brand in
S-VHS as you do with VHS. Some makers will do a better job than
others.  I've read all the test reports I can find and you often seen
luminance S/N ratios which range from low 40s to high 40s, some even
into the 50s. You don't often see useful bandwidth information,
however.  In any case, this seems similar to the situation you have
with test reports on regular VHS machines. 

One other data point is that one of the rags had a test panel rate
various machines, and I think Panasonic came in as one of (if not the)
best machines, and it is a relabeled Panasonic that I saw for $600. 

I've read that the S-VHS circuitry is not expensive and should only
add about 10% to the manufacturing cost of a machine. 

--
Phil Ngai, phil@diablo.amd.com		{uunet,decwrl,ucbvax}!amdcad!phil
"The government is not your mother."