VHS goes the way of the dodo (finally)

Anyone out there still holding their breath and hoping that VHS might make a comeback? It's time to exhale. Japanese electronics maker JVC said this week that it was going to stop making VCRs and that it would stop selling them once inventory ran out. The first company to start making stand-alone VCRs, in 1976, JVC was also the last to stop making them. I guess that selling all those videocassettes you were hoarding isn't going to get you through the recession now.

What happened to the VCR, which was in 70% of U.S. homes by 1990 and 90% of U.S. homes by 1999? DVD players, for one. Maybe too many people heeded the advice of a 1990 L.A. Times article, which read:

The smart money is to ignore all of the VCRs and jump into the laser video disc field buying a combination player that plays audio CDs as well as laser video discs.

OK, laser discs posed no match for the VCR, which reigned supreme until the DVD came along. Regardless, any technology that you can't leave in the sun without melting doesn't have much of a chance of succeeding in these days of global warming.

VHS lasted six years longer than its early competitor, Betamax. Sony stopped making Betamax videocassette recorders by the end of 2002 (although strangely, it still sold 3,000 of those devices in 2001). Devoted Betaphiles still hoarded and traded the equipment, and some might still be making a few bucks on EBay, where one video player was going for $58.01 and had 10 bids.

Who knows if VCR owners will have the same success selling their machines on EBay down the road. At the time this post was written, the most expensive VCR in the auction site's vintage electronics category was selling for $35. It had no bids. 

-- Alana Semuels

Photo by drbrain via Flickr

Comments

[Phil]

JVC was not the first company to make a stand-alone VCR. Not counting RCA's professional foray more than a decade earlier, Sony introduced the first stand-alone consumer VCR, the Betamax, a few years earlier, in or around 1973. JVC produced the first stand-alone VHS VCR, an inferior but mre widely-embraced version of consumer video recording and playback, but not the first VCR.

[Eugene T. Nguyen]

For Vietnamese-Americans who still watch rental television series and soap operas from Hong Kong, Taiwan. China, and Korea, the VCR is still living. However, this is weakening.

[Mikey Kay]

I edit and shoot high definition, but I still have a VHS and a Betamax and most of my old video collection is tape. I can still get Betamax tapes and, yes, I'm still recording on it!

[Cesar P.]

Yes, VHS is going away, but I am very disappointed at what we got now: the disks are very susceptible to scratches and other damages. That would render them useless or hard to repair (a kit would fix scratches, but sometimes the damages are irreparable by such kit). If a piece of tape got damaged you still have the rest of it in good shape. I do agree that it is very cumbersome to wait for the tape to go back and forth. The disk are a solution for that. I do wish for manufactures of disk (CDs and DVDs) to make them scratch proof or not so susceptible to scratches. I am willing to use larger disks to have them be less susceptible to minor scratches. PCs seem to be more susceptible to problems with disk and could even crash because of the disks. When would techology solve the problems with damages in the media? When would make media resistant to scratches and other damages from daily use?

[Anthony]

They will have to pry my VHS video cassette recorder from my cold dead hands. I have a large collection of video that was never released to DVD and which will likely never be released to Blu-Ray. There is so much history on VHS which will be lost once everyone has gone digital only. Think of all those great television shows that won't be released to DVD: USA Night Flight, Friday Night Videos, the early years of MTV, the Jack Palance years of Ripley's Believe It or Not, and the evening news to say the least. Sadly, JVC decks have bee subpar for years, as most modern VCRs are. They've long lacked the pro features that late '80s and early '90s decks had which come in handy with difficult video, but people with large VHS collections should invest in an extra VCR, even one of these modern ones.

[John Arnold]

Dang...like others, I have oodles of VHS's...programs and TV commercials I created, my archived portfolio. Well, fortunately some things, like my Madballs TV commercial, are on the internet (YouTube and other sites)...

And I, like others in this town and around the world, still have programs/commercials on 2" and 1" videotape! Whoa...showing my age!!

Now, the only thing I have to worry about: When will we move away from DVD, and trash my more recent (and expensive) collection of movies and my current portfolio?

I was once talking to someone from the National Archives in Washington DC, and they said one of the looming tragedies is the fact that storing things on electronic-based technologies (versus paper, etc) is the loss of history. They have reams of 5-1/4" floppies with material...

Well, fortunately, I won't be around for "history"....because "showing my age" will come to a complete stop one day.

Ciao for now...

John

[Matt H.]

I was a VHS tape collector for 20 years (both home made and pre-recorded) Two years ago, I recorded them all to DVDs using my new DVR/DVD burner. It saves a lot of space and made room for more! If you look at e-bay, ioffer and other auction sites, others are selling DVDs made from old VHS's too. Let VHS go.

[Tim]

My parents just bought a new VCR because they are afraid their current ones will break down and they won't be able to watch Lawrence Welk episodes that they taped 20 years ago.