The VH Trade Site Forums Archives

[tstronge]

I don't trade as much as I use to, but I got to thinking on how trading on dvd's have changed my expections on what I recieve when I trade. Stand alone vs PC, all those different menus options, changing the orignal audio with a better soure or multi-audios. Has dvd burner's made trading better? What has it changed about the way you trade and your expections and what you recieve? or better yet what did I put in my drink? All deep questions. :D

[kennyr]

Great thread.Here are my thoughts:

tstronge wrote: Has dvd burner's made trading better?

Yes it has.Now it is easier & more convienient to make/copy dvds.More folks have access to burners so it opens up more doors.Blanks have gotten lower in price so that's cool as well.It is also cheaper to ship a dvd/multiple dvds thanks to lighter weight.As long as the trader is using a PC based reader & burner to copy,that's cool. I hated getting dvds that were obviously transfered from a STANDALONE player to a STANDALONE recorder.Believe it or not,people are still doing that today & call it a CLONE! "Hey,I use killer cables,use flexmode,it looks amazing,you can't tell the difference".If you have ever heard or hear this,RUN.....

tstronge wrote: What has it changed about the way you trade and your expections and what you recieve?

As long as you know WHAT YOU ARE TRADING FOR then it is no problem.In other words: X show-Date-City,state-PC (who authored it if possible) or Standalone & LINEAGE of show.

At Bit of a rant here,really important: Lineage of show.Alot of people don't list the lineage of a show they have.Not because they don't know but because they don't take the time to find out or just don't care.I HATE getting dvds that look like they were made from a 3rd or 4th gen VHS when another trader has a copy off the master or as good as you're gonna get it.Don't put out crap into the trading pools people.Why bother (unless it is something ultra rare)? If you have a dvd that looks like utter s--t,then use it as drink coaster.You will be doing yourself & the trading community,as a whole,a huge favor.I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a crap dvd just to find out that a WAY WAY WAY better copy of this show/tv special is out there. KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TRADING FOR...

Also,know what kind of blanks the other person is going to be using.Quality blanks are so important & are often overlooked by traders it is disgusting.It sucks to get a dvd & you know it is a cheapo brand.If the show is worth having,it is worth putting on a quality blank.Nowadays,as I said before,DVD blanks are at a decent price.Get quality/MADE IN JAPAN media whenever possible.

tstronge wrote: or better yet what did I put in my drink? All deep questions. :D

It's all good... :thumb:

All the best.Have a safe & happy holiday season,
Kenny

[ron]

kennyr wrote: Also,know what kind of blanks the other person is going to be using.Quality blanks are so important & are often overlooked by traders it is disgusting.It sucks to get a dvd & you know it is a cheapo brand.If the show is worth having,it is worth putting on a quality blank.Nowadays,as I said before,DVD blanks are at a decent price.Get quality/MADE IN JAPAN media whenever possible.
This is the reason I ran my branch (of the last DVD tree I was on) like I did. I requested that people send me whatever blanks they wanted their DVDs burnt onto and I picked up postage for the return trip. That way everyone got their DVDs on their favorite media.

[tstronge]

kennyr wrote: Great thread.Here are my thoughts:

tstronge wrote: Has dvd burner's made trading better?

Yes it has.Now it is easier & more convienient to make/copy dvds.More folks have access to burners so it opens up more doors.Blanks have gotten lower in price so that's cool as well.It is also cheaper to ship a dvd/multiple dvds thanks to lighter weight.As long as the trader is using a PC based reader & burner to copy,that's cool. I hated getting dvds that were obviously transfered from a STANDALONE player to a STANDALONE recorder.Believe it or not,people are still doing that today & call it a CLONE! "Hey,I use killer cables,use flexmode,it looks amazing,you can't tell the difference".If you have ever heard or hear this,RUN.....

tstronge wrote: What has it changed about the way you trade and your expections and what you recieve?

As long as you know WHAT YOU ARE TRADING FOR then it is no problem.In other words: X show-Date-City,state-PC (who authored it if possible) or Standalone & LINEAGE of show.

At Bit of a rant here,really important: Lineage of show.Alot of people don't list the lineage of a show they have.Not because they don't know but because they don't take the time to find out or just don't care.I HATE getting dvds that look like they were made from a 3rd or 4th gen VHS when another trader has a copy off the master or as good as you're gonna get it.Don't put out crap into the trading pools people.Why bother (unless it is something ultra rare)? If you have a dvd that looks like utter s--t,then use it as drink coaster.You will be doing yourself & the trading community,as a whole,a huge favor.I can't tell you how many times I've gotten a crap dvd just to find out that a WAY WAY WAY better copy of this show/tv special is out there. KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TRADING FOR...

Also,know what kind of blanks the other person is going to be using.Quality blanks are so important & are often overlooked by traders it is disgusting.It sucks to get a dvd & you know it is a cheapo brand.If the show is worth having,it is worth putting on a quality blank.Nowadays,as I said before,DVD blanks are at a decent price.Get quality/MADE IN JAPAN media whenever possible.

tstronge wrote: or better yet what did I put in my drink? All deep questions. :D

It's all good... :thumb:

All the best.Have a safe & happy holiday season,
Kenny

Some very good points made there. My thoughts on dvd trading, with anything there is a good side and a bad side. The good side : better quality shows are being traded. It preserves the quality better than vhs. You can fix things up (with pc burners and a little with stand aloneones). It's cheaper to trade. Disc's have gone way down in price. Ones made in japan are harder to find though. The down side. People are looking for master clones or copies from a 1st gen. Nothing wrong with looking for the best, but 2nd gens are good too. About Lineage, that can get messy at times. Is the master clone a true master clone or from a copy of the orignal and is that copy a true 1st gen gen or was it from a copy of the master and so on and so on. I hope this makes sense. Some will work day and night and have the best equipment to make better shows others don't (not that this a good thing or a bad thing).

[frankm]

Depends if you trade video or not or whether you like video or not.

Some hard core audio traders could really careless.

If you trade videos you havta like the fact that copying them, via PC, is easy. It is also a hellva lot easier to mail a disc than a VHS tape (cheaper too I'd imagine).

Yeah, you havta pay attention, SA vs PC, menu, no menu, chapters, no chapters, NTSC vs PAL and on and on. But I look at it this way ... it is no different than paying attention to lineage of audio or equipment used in an audio (some sites etree.org have some members who get really picky about this kind of stuff - and you should see some of the Deadhead trader's list with the lineage information).

It would be better if we all paid a little more attention to the little details.

I think a more interesting question would be has FLAC/SHN trading made trading better? I think everyone would have to say yes to that one. How about has Bit Torrent/Downloading made trading better. I don't know about that one. I have gotten more shows but the interaction is completely removed. I remember the old days of tracking down traders in the back of a magazine. Sneding lots of letters via the Post Office. Actually talking to some traders on the phone. It was much more personal back in the late 80's or early 90's. Technology has made it simplier but has removed some of the human element.

[vhroxu2]

frankm wrote: I think a more interesting question would be has FLAC/SHN trading made trading better? I think everyone would have to say yes to that one.

FLAC/SHN has definitely made trading better. It removes the errors that can creep in when making audio copies. Plus it helps preserve the quality of the original with md5/checksums.

frankm wrote: How about has Bit Torrent/Downloading made trading better. I don't know about that one. I have gotten more shows but the interaction is completely removed.
frankm wrote: Technology has made it simplier but has removed some of the human element.

I agree Frank. Downloading is great & I've also gotten more shows, but I also love snail mail trades. It's a lot of fun going to the mailbox and getting a package from someone. I'm all for keeping the human element intack, at least somewhat. :thumb:

Daryl

[Chris UK]

Great topic Trev! Here are some of my thoughts....

Overall, DVD trading has improved things massivley!

I'm an old school VHS archivist/trader so I remember only too clearly how difficult it was tracking down low gen sources. The cost of sending tapes internationally was huge too, DVDs cost very little in comparison. Having chapter points on DVDs makes them far more useful and fun to watch when you can quickly flip to you favorite song instantly.

Of course, just as in the VHS days, you get good and bad quality traders/authors. People still lie about, or are incredibly ignorant about picture quality. In the VHS days there were always idiots that used Long Play or cheap shitty tapes..... now we have people who encode badly with low bit rates or de-interlace footage (my pet hate!) and there are plenty or crappy makes of disc around. So in some ways things havent changed much.

DVD has caused an explosion of trading in video footage, everybody and their dog colects boots now. Video tape trading was a pretty specialist hobby, not so DVD. With SA DVD recorders being so dirt cheap and readily available, there are going to be multiple versions of the same footage floating around, with massive variation in quality. This is the down side of DVD..... wading thru mountains of crap to get to the good stuff. This is one reason why I'm not too keen on the Bit Torrent thing. I would rather build up trading relationships with collectors/authors who share my high quality standards and enjoy similar music. I know I can trust Silver Stallion, Cato, BTB, Oryo, Digital Reproductions etc etc not to put out crap. I find the best footage often comes from old school video traders like myself who author their own discs from their own collections. The more time, effort and info that a trader puts into their list, the more likely I am to trade with them. Linage and quality ratings are top priority. We all have a duty to honestly grade our footage and put that info on our lists. I have a basic equation that says....

no gradings = no trade

One of the main reasons I make my own DVDs (apart from knowing I will do a decent job of it) is that I like sharing my footage. When I started collecting footage back in 1982, I never dreamt I would be able to share it worldwide and preserve the quality. I just though all my hundreds of tapes would sit on the shelf for my viewing only. DVD trading has made all those years of effort collecting, worthwhile.

Anyway, give it a few years and DVDs will be dead too....... video compression techniques will have improved and so will hard drive sizes..... all houses will come with a built in video server hot wired to all rooms and the internet. These servers will hold our complete collections! We will all be sharing files, but directly (such as an email attachment) rather than via bit torrent. Our old DVDs will just be hard back up copies stored in the garage!

Chris.

[jstarr2000]

I still like to trade. Even though it's slowed down a little, I've ran across some really cool people on this site with great collections. I usually wind up doing a bigger trade with them. I have a DSL connection, but it still takes too long to download a DVD. Trading is much easier for me.

Thanks To The Trade Community Here!