The Steel Guitar Forum

Anyone wanting to come out with a new course it is now forbidden to be in a tape or VHS format.

CD and DVD format is now law in the PSG industry.

Thank You for your time....

Your a good man Mike!

Now what the heck am I supposed to do now with a 1" Ampeg deck? Or with all thet 3/4" tape?

And my 8-track Lear?

Anybody ever seen a dash mounted 45 rpm record player? My dad says they made one... Must've been hell at a railroad crossing...

Ray I had one of those machines back in 1967....worked not bad as well.

A.J. says it all!

No more videotape here either.

OOOOOPPPSS!

I guess having a bunch of 8-tracks made for my new course was a negative career move, huh?

They were such a good deal, too!!

I'm amazed at how many cd courses & dvd courses I have purchased only to find out that they are direct copies from the cassette or vhs sources.

By direct I mean that the cd's are just 1 continuous track and the dvd is just 1 continuous clip. It sure makes it a pain in the butt to navigate, especially once you're in the middle of the course.

That's just laziness & bad business. Take the time to make it a quality product...even if it's an old course that is transferred over.

Casey

I prefer to have evereything on this format:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=y9DoJAnB9Nk

Ben I saw that video on VH1 it is very funny thanks.

Herb the PSG police will let you slid this once.

it is now forbidden to be in a tape or VHS format.

Says who?

The most recent info infers that CDs are highly perishable and begin to degrade the moment one writes or places a label on them. I kept my 78s, 331/3s, 45s, and all my tapes. And I'll keep my CDs and DVDs.

So, Sony Betamax format is out of the question too ?

What should I do with these 8,000 Sony Betamax tapes I just bought on EBAY for $3 ?

I was hoping to sell em' to you guys

By direct I mean that the cd's are just 1 continuous track and the dvd is just 1 continuous clip. It sure makes it a pain in the butt to navigate, especially once you're in the middle of the course.

Yep, that's just plain dumb. There are such simple programs that will break track up based on time, silence, etc. it's just ridiculous for shoddy production like that to be done.

Al - While it's true CD's do deteriorate, it's at a VERY slow rate - and until the copy-protection folks completely destroy even personal backups, you can load your CD's onto your computer using something simple like ITunes. I probably have 3/4 of my CD's backed up that way - and it's also the way to load 'em on an iPod.


In fact, I was listening to Herb's "Swingin' On E9" in the truck via iPod on a long drive today!

Anybody ever seen a dash mounted 45 rpm record player?

Well, there's one in this '58 Impala...tell you what, I'll take the car and you can have the 45 record player

Tony just put them up on ebay and use the word "vintage" when listing. I am sure the bids will flow!!!!

VHS type video tapes (or secam in Asia or PAL in Europe) are no longer being manufactured anywhere in the world today. They became such a staple that huge amounts have been manufactured and sold very cheaply. Manufacturers know this and also know that everything is moving to digital. There's about a ten year supply of these items and no one is buying them . Very few are still using them and soon.......no one.

On a side note.......you do understand that you must buy a high definition TV before March 2008 right?

On a side note.......you do understand that you must buy a high definition TV before March 2008 right?

Only if you want to watch the lame a$$ garbage on TV. Gives me a good excuse to cut the cord.

Yup, your big brother the FCC thinks you need HDTV - "we gotta move these refrigerators, we gotta move these color TVs." You know it's gonna make a real big difference on your 19" screen.

If you don't like vinyl or tape, it's easy enough to copy it onto your computer and burn a CD or DVD. What's the big deal?

A. J. Schobert wrote:Anyone wanting to come out with a new course it is now forbidden to be in a tape or VHS format.

CD and DVD format is now law in the PSG industry.

Thank You for your time....

And what am I supposed to do with all of the tapes in the Forum catalog?

Jim Sliff wrote:While it's true CD's do deteriorate, it's at a VERY slow rate...

I have CD-R's recorded 5 years ago that will barely play now. Half of the tracks are gone.

I have cassettes from 1970, made on very cheap machines, that still play.

And what am I supposed to do with all of the tapes in the Forum catalog?

Sell it, there's no problem. I have thousands of vinyl records, which I'm sure will long outlast me and every CD I own. Tapes do deteriorate, but I also have 35 year old tapes that still play. Anyway, I worry much more about the content than the format.

To be perfectly frank - CDs and DVDs of older material are of no better quality than the analog they were originally recorded on. Well-recorded analog - in principle - is better quality than digital. The idea of digital recording is to sample the real thing, store the digital samples, and then reconstruct by interpolating the digital samples when you want to listen or watch. It's possible - again in principle - to reconstruct perfectly, but it never happens.

The big advantages to digital are fault-tolerance to small imperfections, the ability to use digital signal processing, and convenience. But analog is generally much more fault-tolerant to large imperfections. The scratch that renders your CD or DVD totally worthless generally just puts a pop in the sound of your vinyl record.

Again - it is totally trivial to convert analog to digital. If you want it in a digital format, you got it. DVD recorders with analog inputs and video capture cards are cheap. No way am I giving up my old vinyl. Luddite? Fuggedaboudit.

Ray, do you have a 1"Ampeg deck?

Keep selling bob!

I do have tapes myself but I just love the ease to go to a part very fast and this is helpful in a pedal steel course.

And as far as 2008 goes I may not be up to snuff there!

A. J. Schobert wrote:And as far as 2008 goes I may not be up to snuff there!

No, A.J., you're right on the money.

Anyone selling this kind of stuff who still has legacy format stock to sell should keep selling it as long as stock lasts (and customers tolerate it), obviously. But to keep using all the inferior old processes still around to produce new material is just bad form, "laziness & bad business practice", as someone else said. It's an insult for anyone to insist that we keep all our obsolete equipment around just to play their low quality crap.

I've in the past bought "training" tapes that were of such bad quality I couldn't even stand to play them, with their poor video quality and audio where the noise was higher than the signal. People sometimes don't even bother to use decent mics - they just shoot using the cheap analog camcorder's poor quality on-board mic, and get away with it.

IMO, it's past time the PSG industry made some effort to catch up with the rest of the world in technology. It's the 21st century, and digital media and e-commerce are standard everywhere but here. Tab books, cassette and VCR tapes belong in museums alongside their fondly-remembered playback machinery.