Home > Consumer Reviews > TDK 160 Minute VHS Premium Videotape (4-Pack)

Those who are said they got the wrong tapes need to do a little more research. JR didn't send you the wrong tapes...Revue tapes are standard grade tapes.

What is misleading is that TDK markets them with the term "premium quality", but they are still standard grade tapes.

The tapes (in order of increasing quality) are:
Revue - "Standard Grade"
HS - "High Standard" grade
Vivid - "High Grade"
EHG - "Extra High Grade"
...and they go up from there.
I'm not supposed to post a url, so do a google search for TDK's website using the following search criteria "tdk recmedia vhs" and you will get detailed information regarding these tapes.

I am a collector of TV shows. I have 30+ tapes filled with TV shows that I recorded. I've recorded on several different brands, including Panasonic, Sony, and Maxell. The Panasonic tapes played back terribly. Sony gave me a little trouble but not much. Maxell gave me no trouble, but they're hard to find in my area. So TDK is my choice. It has never given me trouble, it is readily available, I can tape in EP with almost no quality loss. A note to other collectors and/or fans of TV, if you ever want to tape a TV program, TDK tapes will never let you down.

TDK manufactures excellent eight hour blank VHS tapes for all purpose general recording of audio-visual media. One reviewer correctly notes that "revue quality" really means standard quality; but these do a really good job nonetheless. As long as you have the right kind of equipment, these tapes record television programs off TV or they can be used to make copies of a non-copyright protected VHS tape. These tapes have up to a total of eight hours worth of blank recording space; and this is useful when recording longer television shows, for example. You get up to eight hours of recording time if you choose the longest recording time option on your VHS recorder/player.

Of course, the best image quality will be at shorter recording times but many people say they're satisfied with the image they get using the eight hour recording time speed.

TDK blank VCR tapes ensure that you get long life out of these blank tapes. Things should look "sharp" and in focus, too.

Overall, TDK makes a great choice when you want reliable, blank VHS tapes to record television shows or anything else that you wish to record. I have used this brand and I cannot think of any major complaints. I highly recommend TDK eight hour VHS tapes for you to use when you need to record something onto a VHS cassette tape.

We've bought something around five hundred blank video tapes over recent years, used all of them. It is TDK only that has proved reliable.

Sony was a nightmare. No matter what store, and which quality line, all those tapes were very bad, and that unpleasant discovery came after I'd already accumulated different purchases totalling 150+ Sony vidocassettes. All Trash! No Sony cassette ever worked properly here in EP mode, and this despite the fact that the recording VCR is a new Sony model. Sometimes the tracking would just get into chaos. Sometimes a thick white horizontal line across the screen. Sony in EP = garbage disposal.

Sony in SP mode, sometimes ok, sometimes not, but even the ok ones wore out very rapidly, and there was a noticable waviness and poor quality difference at any time.

Maxell, we had some intermittent luck with for a while, but not lately. Mainly lately having failures when trying to play on the VCR that is not the original recording one. In EP mode. The tracking fails, and the tapes is useless on any but the original VCR. Too bad. A couple years ago, luck had been running better with the Maxells, but not so lately, this past year or so...had to quit buying Maxell.

Fuji, no problems, but the times bought them, it was their low-end line, and the poor pic quality was far too blatant, even for our relatively low VHS standards chez nous.

It is TDK with whom I've never yet had a bad tape, and that's hundreds of TDK tapes have used. Often overwriting again and again. EP mode. Different VCRs, recording and playback. I won't buy anything but TDK now. It's not worth all the time recording something, to have it put on lemons. TDK could charge three times the price for me, and I'd still choose them, after this extensive track record of proving themselves the only ones that I can count on.

What can i say ? When it comes to any type of MEDIA magnetic/optical, TDK is the best. I still have some of their audio tapes that are more than 20 years old and they still work great. If its a TDK, i will close my eyes and buy it.