VHS Generation Loss Demonstrated in 20 Seconds

Some useless filler that could've been uploaded on my alt channel, but eh, I feel like doing it on here anyways. I made this video just for fun on testing generation loss using the notorious color bar test pattern. This demonstration contains 10 generations with each one being 2 seconds long.

[rogehmarbi]

I somewhat "simulated" this once with modern equipment when I was younger.

My local TV aired reruns of popular movies back then, and this one time they had Transformers on, which I liked. In my infinite wisdom I recorded the show playing using a camcorder propped in front of the screen. I had CRT TVs back then so the qualities kind of suck, but it worked good enough for me.

There's this scene that I liked (the first attack at the US base) that I wanted to show my friends at school. However, I knew jack about trimming or editing videos, so I grabbed my mom's phone and pointed it at the camcorders rather tiny screen playing the scene. Great! Now I can watch that part over and over again without having to fast forward through the full movie.

Went to school and showed that scene to my friends. They wanted it too, but not knowing how to share it (like I'd know what Bluetooth is) so they huddled around my mom's phone and recorded it on theirs. Now everyone had the footage.

Finally, one of them said that the video would look better if played on his laptop. Lacking cables that we could use to transfer the files, we pointed the built in webcam at one of their phones and got it into the laptop.

The final footage as expected was an ABSOLUTE mush. It was nothing but blurry pixels with infinite mirror effect and weird static noise all around. After all, the footage was taken with a low res webcam recording a low res phone screen, that was recorded from another tiny phone screen, which was recorded from a camcorder screen that really was meant for previewing, and was taken from a TV quality broadcast played on a CRT TV. That was probably my first introduction to "generation loss"

[beast]

Thankfully by the time I was a kid, CDs, DVDs and Blu-Ray were the standard for recording anything and everything audio and video based.
I think the VHS system with the complete haemorrhage of quality between re-recordings would have driven me nuts. I think I could tolerate up to gen 3. the colour banding on anything more than that would drive me insane.

[Bandikit]

This has been the most unsettling 20 seconds of my entire day

[vlaznyccc]

Generations 3 and 4 are pretty nostalgic, extremely saturated colors and shaky static-like image.

[aceknown]

It felt ominous. The endless tone. Increasing in volume intensity decibel by decibel. It's just shy away from going into full darkness

[scrittle]

The last time I ever watched a VHS it was Toy Story 1 around 2015. We had an old TV in storage with an inbuilt VHS player and inserted it, only to get what looked to be generation 5 loss and a constant frequency like in the video. I feel 2nd-hand nostalgia towards this dying technology, it makes me want to go back and experience it firsthand.

[manofhisCOUNTRY]

As a person who grew up when vhs was out dated and replaced with modern cable, I find this progressively horrific and terrifying

[HAGATANA]

I love and appreciate how Ranboo’s Generation Loss has caused YouTube to recommend me videos like this lol

[andiverse-wh]

Just the generations getting from 0 to 10, the odd sound seems to get louder, as the screen gets D A R K.

[voltareamstereo]

0:10 about the quality most teenage boys saw their first adult movie

[cyborgbob]

This some great analog horror. Imagine a scene where a character watched a tape of scientist performing some experiments and going progressively insane after finding something paranormal, as the tape itself slowly starts to corrupt

[HappyRottieDog]

Honestly this is so cool, seeing old technology and things wear away, seeing how far we’ve come. It’s crazy.

[miatata_]

Average youtube video doccumentary intro

[ean]

Man i really love to have that VHS thingy starting from generation 5 to 10

[sethhorst]

A majority of the tapes I have are in the 1-3 section of generation loss. With a few being around 4-5, I notice the picture quality is usually worse on EP speed recordings than on SP speed recordings.

when you start to loose memory of your childhood

[gadpivs]

This would work well at the very end of a creepy movie about the extermination of the human race by aliens.

[sonicthehedgehog_offi]

This is the most disturbing thing I saw on YouTube.

[FurbyFanClassOf]

My school confidence going down hill (2021, Colorized)

[villages]

RIP to those who took to achieving the VHS route.