vhs sucks, don't do it

I recently watched one-and-a-half YouTube videos of some guy who decided hey, wouldn't it be cool if I put out some videos using nothing but broadcast quality video equipment of the '90s. Being I actually have a college degree in Video and Radio Production, I thought okay, sure, I'll watch this.

I got through the first video. Then I started watching another, got about halfway through it and... no. I had to stop.

I'll explain why I had to stop in a bit.

At the time I was going to college, television industry broadcast standards weren't exactly standards but rather a weird mix. Whatever you could afford dictated what you used.

There was a period when four video editing standards were being used all at the same time. The old-and-crusty (even back in the '90s) U-matic, S-VHS (Super VHS), Betacam, and non-linear digital editing with Avid.

When I got my degree, a cuts-only non-linear Avid video editing system was $30,000. If you wanted digital video effects a.k.a. DVE, that was $60,000. Not an exaggeration. A cuts-only system was at the college I attended that was brand new then, and students were VERY FORBIDDEN from touching it because staff was still learning how to use the damned thing.

Not only was I forbidden from touching that setup as was everyone else, but one year after I graduated, that's when students got to use it. I was a bit pissed off about that, but whatever.

The stuff I was exposed to was lower tier craptastic S-VHS cuts-only editing systems. One play deck, one play/record deck, one edit controller, two 9-inch monochrome monitors. That's it. The only other thing I used that would have been considered somewhat high-end was the Grass Valley Group switcher in the studio.

Other stuff at the college I had very limited use with (only because the classes I was taking didn't call for much use of it) were Amiga 2000 and 4000 computers with a Video Toaster card and LightWave 3D.

There are three things I remember from that stuff.

First, unreliable and slow. It was normal that those Amiga computers would break, especially for the Amiga 2000 boxes.

Second, eye strain. Even in my teens, I hated any time I had to do any work on an Amiga box, and I know exactly why. 60Hz standard NTSC refresh rate for the monitors. This hurt my eyes to the point where whenever it was crunching whatever data it had to, I would look away just to give my eyes a rest. On my Windows PC at home, I could set the monitor refresh to 70Hz or 72Hz, which my eyes agreed with just fine. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to change the refresh rate on an Amiga box at college, so I had to suffer. Believe me, if I had known how to get that monitor refresh rate changed to 70 or 72Hz, I absolutely would have done it.

Third, the "RENDERING" notice. This was for the 4000 boxes. Students who were rendering whatever crappy animation they were working on in LightWave would start the rendering process, turn off the monitor, then tape a piece of paper over the monitor glass warning people not to use nor shut off the computer. One student in particular taped a notice that said "rendering for many moons, leave on" or something to that effect. The monitor was clicked off to prevent burn-in.

I remember the cuts-only editing, the color bar crap, the time base correcting, the flaky Amiga boxes with awful picture, and so on.

IT SUCKED.

And that brings me to the one-and-a-half videos I watched on YouTube.

As I said, the videos were purposely shot on '90s-era broadcast quality equipment. It's not that the videos were bad, but I hated looking at the picture. It's the very nature of how native NTSC video looks that really puts me off.

No, this isn't one of those things where it looks bad because I'm viewing it on a modern computer monitor. Even if I were viewing the video on an actual CRT television, I'd still hate it.

The '90s NTSC look sucks, and the end result is always a bad picture.

Keep in mind there is a giant difference between a native NTSC look and film-on-television.

Film-on-television actually looks decent. Sure, it's cropped to 4:3 with a "safe title area" border around it, but it doesn't look bad. Perfect Strangers and Cheers are good examples of '80s and '90s television shows shot on film. You'll immediately notice the color looks great and shot depth is good.

A broadcast quality NTSC look, like a soap opera from the early '90s, looks absolutely awful. Where film has depth, video looks shallow. And the only reason broadcast quality NTSC video looks semi-decent for news broadcasts is because everything was shot at close, flat angles, which defeated a lot of the shallow look since the shot basically had no depth to begin with. That, and the in-studio lighting was bright enough to power a small town. News broadcasts of the era very purposely made everything appear as flat as possible since that ultimately was the best look they could get.

Consumer grade VHS video is the worst of the lot. The color is bad, with the worst being the image always showing a sickly green. That green is always there even without chroma keying and sticks out like a sore thumb. And nothing ever looks truly in focus. The end result is a shallow, fuzzy, sickly green appearance. Also, there's no way to get even lighting with VHS. Something will always be too bright or too dark or both, depending on what's in the frame. Totally unavoidable.

Poe Effect is real for nerds into yesteryear video tech

Anything on the internet to the tune of "things were better in the '80s/'90s" will include tons of talk about television since that was the #1 source of entertainment at the time. Naturally, home video also gets talked about since camcorders were a big deal of the era.

Nerds get blinded by others waxing nostalgic about video, thinking that home video, the "VHS aesthetic" if you will, was something cool and awesome that everyone loved.

Wrong.

Just because a lot of people say something was awesome in the past doesn't mean it was.

Video tech nerd first gets into VHS because it's cheap, then quickly realizes how garbage the picture is, so he bumps up to broadcast quality NTSC video gear.

After that, video tech nerd realizes later (usually much too late) that all the '90s broadcast quality cameras, S-VHS or Betacam tapes, decks, crusty old Amiga boxes and Video Toaster cards will not fix that crappy shallow picture. Doesn't matter if it's a field or studio camera. Trying to fix that shallow picture is a battle you cannot win.

Even if you know everything about color correcting, lens adjustment, time base correcting, lighting, and shot composition, you are never fixing that shallow NTSC video appearance. The picture will always be bad in the end.

What really is the VHS aesthetic?

Video, even at its best pro-grade NTSC quality, sucks. The look of it has a depressing vibe. Where film has an organic quality, video is inorganic.

The VHS aesthetic is a funny thing. Want to know what that aesthetic truly is? It's when the video signal is screwed up either from tape degradation and/or VCR head misalignment. Those problems caused by wear, tear, and age actually give the video an organic quality.

Yes, I am saying the VHS aesthetic is achieved when the media and/or playback machine starts to fail. That is something only exhibited with aging VHS technology. Okay, technically consumer grade Betamax can exhibit it too, but VHS is the one people know.

Another funny thing is that try as people might, you can't digitally reproduce VHS degradation. Oh sure, there are video editing software plugins for it, but they're all terrible. You legitimately need an old VCR with semi-working video connectors, and proper old media to achieve just the right look.

What I would say to any nerd into yesteryear video that's chasing after the VHS aesthetic is this:

Stop buying '90s era pro-grade NTSC video gear, because you're barking up the wrong tree. Start buying old crappy working VCRs instead.

Shoot and edit all your video digitally, then re-record it to VHS on a deck with a wonky head using old videotape. Heck, you might even want to purposely seek out two-head VCRs instead of four-head to degrade the quality even further.

Given the choice between "perfect" (no such thing) pro-grade video and consumer grade VHS, I'd prefer watching VHS video with periodic flubs in the audio, tracking that sometimes goes off, and crackly static that happens from the videocassette slack naturally breaking down. Why? It has way more life to it compared to cold, corporate "perfect" NTSC professional Betacam video.

Consumer grade VHS has the worst picture, no question. But wonky VCRs and old tape slack put life into it. Even with the shallow picture, sickly green, bad light detection, and the never-really-in-focus look, it all can be forgiven when you see crackles, slight tracking errors, hear audio warbling, and so on.

Stop trying to make "good" NTSC video. Go for the aesthetic instead. That's not what people wanted in the '80s and '90s, but it is what people want now.

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Published 2026 Jan 15