What are your thoughts about the future of D-VHS?

Maybe fading out slowly like all kinds of analog tapes, but D-VHS is popular among HD enthusiasts in South Korea because Blu-ray recorders are yet too expensive where average annual income is yet just US$10,000. (D-VHS recorders are much cheaper.)

:O DIGITAL VHS?! i haven't heard such a thing over here in Aust. I'd like to see one though. Hows the quality/capacity?

Quality's as good as to be called good media for recording and storing HD contents. Capacity depends on bit rates, not sure, but probably 2 hours, but after all, it's tape, inconvinient compared to disk-based medium. I mainly use HDDs and sometimes also DVD blank disks to store HD files but people who have D-VHS recorders seem to prefer D-VHS tapes.

Which are in your opinion D-VHS advantages respect HD discs?

Ready availability only I think. HD disks are better as to cost, protective casing, access and transfer speeds, compatibility, and probably more. JVC not only had D-VHS recorders and tapes but also JVC HD camcorders. Sony later introduced Sony Blu-ray recorders and PC drives and later also announced PS/3 with Blu-ray support and Sony HD camcorders (one model already sold and used well) so in some months, the only major advantage of D-VHS will be gone.

can you stream a DVHS to a PC?

D-VHS recorders have IEEE 1394 ports that allow file transfer between PC and D-VHS. There is also a tool called D-VHS Tool that backups HDD to D-VHS.

Thank you very much Kenshin, you are always full of usefull informations.

Bought the first JVC D-VHS in the UK following a glowing review - wish I had not bothered.

Ok, picture quality on normal svhs hi-grade tapes is fine, it should be with 15Mb/s rate! But, mine has several problems.

1) Error 200 often playing back - even with data on tape and not near end of recording
2) Only firewire i/p not output in EU - damn them - be good to get stuff off to other media when heads wear - I will never buy another - which is the really bad aspect of dvhs purchase - old tape formats will die - then what do you do if you cannot back the media up? Outside the EU may be different.
3) Being tape - if suffers from ff/rw - not instantaneous access

btw - my firewire i/p is useless - it works but suffers from a green tinge.

What's output in EU? Why can't use 1394? (Maybe I'm not aware of something especially because I myself have no personal experience with D-VHS.)

Can u just use normal tapes to record digital (as in standard VHS) or do u need some super HG stuff?