Are VHS tapes the same standard in the UK as here in the US?
 Will a tape play here in the states if it comes from the UK?

UK uses PAL vs the US NTSC

while you can get UK Vhs systems that play both formats, I've never seen a US version.. they normally have to be converted.

 Out of curiosity...why in the heck are there different media standards all over the world?  I sent my best friend, who lives in Japan where her husband is stationed, a DVD of home movies and goofy things...and her player won't play it.
Luckily, though, a CD I got from TheBryster works like a charm in all of my CD devices :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code is apparently the reason

The dvd format is encoded to provide the native tv signal used in that contry. So USA is NTSC , while Australia is PAL.  Other countries may use PAL but there are a few different PAL formats. The other major format is SECAM , and there are a few varients of that as well.

Many PAL disc players will convert NTSC video.  

DVD are also coded with a country or region code which means they should not play outside their region.

Depending on the country involved either buy in their market or use a gift certificate.

Many computers will play anything .

ok- see- My dad wants a video called "The Tall Stranger" staring Joel McCrea made in 1957. I thought it would be a good christmas present and the only copies I can find are in the UK.

He wants it on VHS tape. Not dvd.

Are VHS standards the same or different from DVD standards?

Quote -  Out of curiosity...why in the heck are there different media standards all over the world?  I sent my best friend, who lives in Japan where her husband is stationed, a DVD of home movies and goofy things...and her player won't play it.

DVDs are usually region coded -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code (this is the most likely cause of the problem).
While regionless DVDs do exist, they're not that common.

Other possibilities include wrong type of disc (+R or RW) and/or disc not finalised (if home recorded).
Some DVRs may have their own formatting which isn't playable by other brands (or even models) of player.

Quote - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code is apparently the reason

Nope.  Region codes came along much later than TV picture standards were defined.

NTSC is cheap and cheerful, PAL is more expensive to produce but generally gives better quality colour.

In the trade they are known as Never Twice the Same Colour and Pay A Lot respectively.

The French standard is SECAM, which is basically a fucked about with version of PAL.  Created purely out of national pride.

Region codes were created so the movie distributors could roll out home releases of movies in a staggered fashion and charge different amounts, depending on the local market.  After all, why would anyone pay £15 in the UK for a DVD release if they could buy it online from the USA for half that?  Region codes offer no benefit to the consumer at all and they are not tied to a broadcast format.

To answer the OPs questions, no a UK VHS tape won't play in a US machine.  The frame rate is different, as well as the incompatible picture format.

VHS standards and DVD standards are entirely different. 

Technology - the thing that prevents you from getting anything done.

VHS will still be in PAL format so no, your dad won't be able to play it unless you can get it converted to NTSC.

If you have a Chinese DVD player it can play DVDs of any region.

When I worked in TV (as an engineer) we referred to the standards as:

NTSC - Never Twice Same Color
PAL - Pretty Awful Looking
and
SECAM - System Essentially Contrary to American Method 

...and we've done no better with the advent of digital video. There are at least three major systems in use in different regions, and several variants there upon. We never learn.

Which is why the physical format for video delivery is DEAD!!!!!
Digital video files only require that you have the right codec installed
I can Play A Digital movie on my Mac from ANY country using VLC

*Which is why the physical format for video delivery is DEAD!!!!!

• Gotta disagree there, have you ever tried downloading/watching short video clips online on a slow dsl connection? Chuck in poor compression and constant buffering and it's unwatchable.

As for the OP question about conversion -Maplins sells the kit to convert NTSC to PA. Vut if you've only got one tape, use a company  that offers a conversion service. Usually around £15-20 per tape and they usually burn it straight to DVD as well.     

"Gotta disagree there, have you ever tried downloading/watching short video clips online on a slow dsl connection? Chuck in poor compression and constant buffering and it's unwatchable."***

Your slow DSL connection is not a short coming of Digital Video but a Failure of your local infrastructure.
You have the option of using another internet outlet as I am typing this post Via FREE broadband at My local University.

The OP's  DAD, for whatever reason, has Chosen to remain huddled in the crumbling caves of the past(VHS!!??) and must live with the limitations of his choice.

But on the issue of Digital Video VS ridiculously cumbersome and environmentally unfriendly Plastic DVD/Bluray Discs& packaging,

I agree the infrastructure is Not Fully Deployed.
But  I also agree with MS founder Bill Gates who predicted that Blueray will be the LAST major home video Format.

Soon to be Supplanted by all Digital on demand services
likely similar to the HULU tv Model.
With a tool bar Icon in Firefox that enables me to pull up an episode of My Favorite  Sci Fi Series on the fly,
Why would I ever Clutter up my living Space with a Season $$"box set" $$$of  Plastic Discs.

Cheers

 Everyone has their own personal preferences.  I don't know why we have to go out of our way to criticize or belittle them.  Some people simply prefer VHS.  It's what they know.  Not everyone has the time, patience, or inclination to learn new technologies simply to watch a show that they love from way back when.

Not to mention, not all older shows are available online in any format.

Remenber that if you want to watch a ntsc vhs video in UK, not only to have a video tape that plays NTSC, but a TV that is ready to play NTSC footage.

Quote - Remenber that if you want to watch a ntsc vhs video in UK, not only to have a video tape that plays NTSC, but a TV that is ready to play NTSC footage.

actually there are several UK VHS units that will convert on the fly and did'nt require you to have a dual format TV - I had one for many years...

Quote -  Out of curiosity...why in the heck are there different media standards all over the world? 

I'd read that Europe intentionally chose a different TV standard system to give their manufacturers first crack on new sales instead of on imports.

Today, companies seem to make very little effort to develop compatible systems on emerging technologies. Right now, 3D TV sets are just starting to come out and each manufacturer uses a slightly different system and 3D glasses from one format will not work with the others.

I'm surprised that a US DVD wouldn't work on a Japanese player. I was under the impression that both countries had the same system. Was the DVD finalized before shipping it? Disks that haven't been finalized may not play well with all players regardless of country. Depending on the format a DVD is recorded in, it may or may not play on other players. The VR format (the default for many DVD-R recorders) is fairly finicky with older players. I've got different DVD recorders and they all have various problems with disks recorded on the other players.

ok to clarify - the DVD standard is that, world wide. the only restriction is the Region Code. for example I play UK Region 2 DVD's on a US/Canada Region 1 unit with no issues or need to change my Screen. the DVD converts PAL/NTSC automatically. all I had to do was set the player to be Region 0.

same with Blueray in theory, tho the Region Coding on those is a lot tougher.

There are/were patches available that would convert your (computer) DVD drive to region free, allowing it to play discs with any region code.

Wolf, I've always thought that your portentious pronunciamentos  were at least halfway playfully tongue in cheek but sometimes I wonder.

I'm pretty sure that not all of the 37.8 million hits on buy VHS aren't obsolete, and maybe, just maybe, there are people who find buying an inexpensive VHS copy of a movie preferable to buying the DVD - if you can find it, or downloading - if you can find it.

Quote - I'd read that Europe intentionally chose a different TV standard system ...

This is true.

Quote - ... to give their manufacturers first crack on new sales instead of on imports.

Not true.
PAL corrects some problems with NTSC (which is often referred to as "Never The Same Color").

VHS vs Beta is a different issue , more like DVD vs Blue-ray.

*You have the option of using another internet outlet as I am typing this post Via FREE broadband at My local University.

Most people don't, and lets face it there are times when you wouldn't want to go miles away just to watch something.

*The OP's DAD, for whatever reason, has Chosen to remain huddled in the crumbling caves of the past

• Now thats just unfair.

*actually there are several UK VHS units that will convert on the fly and did'nt require you to have a dual format TV

• He's right, plus there plenlty of pass through convertors out there. The ones for imported games consoles can work just as well as ones meant for TV.

*I'm surprised that a US DVD wouldn't work on a Japanese player....

• I'm not, like MagnusGreel says it's about regions. Or more precisely the film industry wanting control over what we can watch. It's the same online as well, many sites like the BBC or Hulu have systems in place to stop content bein watched fron overseas.

*Depending on the format a DVD is recorded in, it may or may not play on other players. And some :)

• As part of the pc repair side of my day job converting data from one format/media types to another type is a regular question and issue.

Anything from extracting text from a scratched disc, 1000's .PDF's because someone lost the master password, to converting 8mm video to DVD, different types of .RAW format and theres always a little something to catch you out. Like badly synced audio, having the right codecs or cables. Knowing how to bypass a DRM system for legitmate reasons etc etc.

maybe I'm a luddite but I certainly don't look forward to the death of physical media. You'll be at the mercy of the infrastructure vulnerable to anything from human screwups to terrorist cyber attacks on the one hand, and on the other, at the mercy of the people who brought us region encoding, the Sony rootkit, DRM, Macrovision etc. ad nauseum. 

Quote - maybe I'm a luddite but I certainly don't look forward to the death of physical media. You'll be at the mercy of the infrastructure vulnerable to anything from human screwups to terrorist cyber attacks on the one hand, and on the other, at the mercy of the people who brought us region encoding, the Sony rootkit, DRM, Macrovision etc. ad nauseum. 

There will always be Physical media of course  but as a commercial Delivery format (home video movie rental& sales)plastic disc's & packaging are most certainly DOOMED
HollyWood Appears,on some levels, to be trying to Avoid the  bitter lesson learned by the music industry
with Direct to on Demand Movie releases.

Cheers

Quote - *I'm surprised that a US DVD wouldn't work on a Japanese player....

• I'm not, like MagnusGreel says it's about regions.

For region-free disks, such as what Jen made with home movies, aren't Japanese DVD players compatible with American players? The best comment I heard about compatibility came from Microsoft's CEO as he was being interviewed on morning TV for the debut of Windows 7. He said that Microsoft listened to customer complaints about Vista and recognized that customers want new operating systems to be compatible with the hardware and software that they own. The fact that he said this in a fashion that it came as a surprising revelation says volumes about the company. At least Microsoft was smart enough to see that Vista did more to boost Apple computer sales than anything Apple did.

the problem was the Disk not the players. a US DVD disk is the same format as a Japanese disk as a British Disk. DVD was developed to end the format problems like that.

it was that actual disk itself at fault.

Quote - the problem was the Disk not the players.

The disks may be made to the same format, but the way disks are recorded is not the same across different recorders. Frankly, even the disks aren't the same from one manufacturer to another and older disks are not the same as newer disks rated for higher record speeds. Look at negative reviews at Amazon for DVD-R disks to see that some disks aren't universally usable on all recorders. I've found that DVD+RW disks from Magavox become unusable after a few dozen recordings, but haven't had the same problem with Sony disks. Even when using the same recordable DVDs across all recorders, I've found many incompatibilities with the different DVRs I have. Recorders, nearing the end of their lives, don't reliably record disks and may not indicate a problem till somebody tries to play the disk. Don't forget that Europe and the Americas use different TV systems so that even entirely compatible players and disks are not going to work in a country that uses a different broadcast system--be it analog or digital HD.

DVD-R disks, if not finalized, are not likely readable across different DVD players/recorders. DVD+R disks don't always need to be finalized to be playable on different players, but it's still a good idea to finalize the disks. DVD-RW disks, recorded in the default VR mode, are not playable in many DVD players/recorders. I have to remember to format RWs in video mode to avoid that problem. New DVD disks, rated for high record speeds, aren't necessarily playable in older DVD recorders/players. My old laptop cannot record on new DVD-R disks, but can record new DVD+R disks. It can still record the few older DVD-R disks that I have.

I've got a few different DVD recorders and they have different levels of compatibility with each other.  With VHS, I could take a tape, record an hour on it with one VCR, bring it to a different brand VCR and continuing recording on the disk. If I try to do the same thing with a DVR, the second DVR probably won't recognize the disk as even being formatted--let alone see that it has room for more material. Between my Pioneer and Panasonic DVR, the disks can be exchanged and recorded on. The same disk is seen as unformatted in my Magnavox DVR. An edited VR mode DVD-R on my Pioneer (using the built-in editing features on the DVR), even after being finalized, is not playable on anything I've tried other than on the Pioneer. It is not playable on any other DVR, DVD player, or computer that I've tried it on. I haven't even tried to use disks recorded with PC software, but that probably has whole new levels of incompatibility. DVD recording software typically does not close the disk session after recording, so the disk is less compatible than if the session was closed.

I've learned that not all recordable DVDs are the same. Not all DVRs are fully compatible with one another. A finalized disk at least has a better chance of being playable than one that isn't finalized. The odds are that a problem with playing a user recorded disk is not with the disk (assuming the disk is made by a reasonably reputable company). There are far too many levels of incompatibilities with hardware to easily blame a disk as being bad.

It's very frustrating that new technologies are less compatible and often less flexible than the ones that they replace.

What you're talking about there ain't so much a compatibility problem as a manufacturing tolerance problem.  A DVD player/recorder should, in theory, be able to last for donkey's years but due to corner cutting, they tend to roll over and die quite easily.  The cheap components used also give rise to a number of tolerance issues, which results in the problems you mentioned. 

Tape and vinyl systems can get away with relatively crude engineering and manufacture.  Digital systems usually can't.

OTOH, any mechanical system is doomed to failure in the long run.

Quote - What you're talking about there ain't so much a compatibility problem as a manufacturing tolerance problem.  

It actually is compatibility because the issue occurs between brands. I picked up a second Magnavox DVR (different model, but inexpensive at $70) when the clock stopped working on the first. I can swap disks for recording between the two Magnavox DVRs, but the incompatibilities with the other two DVRs still exists.

DVRs last longer than VCRs because they are directly mechanically driven instead of using rubber belts that stretch and wear out.  VCRs had problems with chewing up tapes as the machines got old or slightly shifting the position of the tape during recording and playback and causing synchronization problems  when played on other machines.  That's the noise that is noticeable on tapes recorded at the 6 hour speed where white dashes start appearing on the top and bottom of the TV and VCR tracking has to be adjusted. My experience with VCRs is that they had a significantly shorter life than what I've seen with DVRs.

The compatibility issues I have with DVRs haven't been age related. They exist with brand new machines. I've changed my workflow to work with the issues, but it would be nice if manufacturerers did more to ensure that everything works together.

I used to have a Sony VCR (probably late 80s - early 90s vintage) that I bought used from a pawnshop - not exactly the best provenance. I used the heck out of it and it was a solid machine that lasted roughly a decade with one (approx. $25) repair. I have a much newer model now. It weighs about 30% less and IMO is probably not as well made. I doubt it would last 5 years undel the same load. Of course, the norm has become that when it breaks, simply replace it and get the next disposable generation which may or may not have some new feature that you need or want.

With electronica at least, they go from expensive and well made to mass produced crap, and the interval between the two seems to be getting shorter all the time. It's true that in theory, something like a belt-driven device would be more troublesome, but IMO, an older, quality piece of equipment may often be superior to the "equivalent" new stuff.

It's not that the new technology is inferior, it's the QC and/or the design. Case in point, I have one of those DTV boxes. After a few months, the buttons on the remote started going out one by one and new batteries didn't help. I have a friend with the identical setup and while his still works sort of, the up-down channel buttons never worked on his. It is nothing but a circuit board with a rubber membrane keypad and the IR LED - nothing much to go wrong but it did. That's something that, in my experience, was rare with older remotes, with arguably a more complicated design.
 

I had similar experiences with my older VCRs lasting longer than later ones. The older ones went 5 years without problems and newer ones became problematic in a year.

There were things I could do on videotape easily that are difficult to do with DVRs--to the point where I've given up trying to do them. The two are different technologies, so there's probably no easy way to fix it. When editing videotapes, if you recorded more than you wanted, you hit Stop, Play, Reverse Search a little, Pause, and record over that extra material so that playback would be continuous without that unwanted stuff. With a DVR, that's not even possible to fix with a standard record-once disk. Even with an RW, hitting Stop means waiting for the disk to finalize. The DVR may or may not have editing features depending on model. If it does, it requires fast-forwarding from the start of the disk title to the desired point of editing, clicking the start of the edit point, playing to the end of the unwanted section, clicking an end point, clicking a Done button and waiting for the disk to finalize again. The workflow changed from less than 30 seconds to a ten minute job.

Digital cable is another example of a new technology not being as efficient in some ways as analog--at least for my usage.  I like to record the different late night talk shows on different channels to watch the next day. With analog, all I have to do is split the signal to each recorder and I can do it easily. Digital cable requires paying $10/month each for digital boxes to receive the signal or pay another $10/month for their DVR with multiple tuners.

Then we have to deal with design decisions that seem to keep getting dumber. Most of the DVRs I have will start playing the last recorded program when I insert a disk I recorded. I don't understand the sensibility of that. It would seem that the default state ought to be the first title on the disk.

Anybody who has dealt with Windows for any length of time has felt the frustration of Microsoft's constant changes in interfaces that often defy logic. Although I can understand the logic behind the Office 2007 ribbon bars, moving a lot of common functions to a squiggle graphic is certainly not as sensible as when they were on the File menu.