DV Filmmaking

Mastering to DVD, and the Benefits of Distributing Your Work in a Digital Format

Why the VHS Is Still a Viable Option

This section of the book is clearly not a love story between the author and the VHS. However, creating VHS copies of your film can make it much easier to get your work to particular segments of the public. Believe it or not, there are still many people who don’t own a DVD player. Rather than exclude a potentially large number of viewers, making a project available on VHS may help you reach more people. Depending on the target audience you’re trying to reach—for example, older people who are uncomfortable with new technologies or schools that don’t have the funds to update equipment—making your film available in VHS may be a very practical decision.

Back in the old days (meaning before 2003, when I bought my first DVD burner–equipped editing system), I found it very frustrating to create a work of stunning picture and audio quality using entirely digital tools, and then distribute lower quality copies on VHS tape. Working in an all-digital domain enabled me to edit without a generational loss in quality, but no matter how good the transfer, making VHS copies of a film always degraded my sound and my images. Even after affordable digital cameras and editing systems became widely available in the late 1990s, the most common way to distribute copies of a film remained the unflattering VHS tape.

Fortunately, we now have other options. Computers in the prosumer price range ...