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The VHS is Dead
Ronnie Coote writes "The UK's largest retailer of electronics is phasing out VHS VCRs. Sales of DVD players have outstripped VCRs by 40-to-1 recently. So how long until the mass market will be saying goodbye to the DVD player?" A few historical links to commemorate the occasion: Sony Kills Betamax, Why VHS Was Better, and How to Preserve VHS Recordings. For the future, maybe we'll have Digital VHS, but I suspect it will mostly be hard drive-based recorders.
Netcraft confirms.....VHS is dead.
Please, spare us the netcraft jokes.
^^
Digital killed the video star...
Actually I agree, haven't used VHS in over 2 years.
You can't handle the truth.
It amazes me though that all the big retailers are still selling and having sales on VCRs.. I mean.. who still has a VCR? Even if you do have one.. why would you bother buying a new one?
Don't Tread on Me
I've rented so many scratched DVDs that at this point I rent the VHS tape before I rent the DVD.
--
Long-term effects of Bush deficits
Personally, I refuse to use DVDs. They offer too little control for my taste, and frankly, I don't give two hoots if it's digital or analog.
If this makes it hard for me to rent movies, I guess I'll just not see as many movies as before.
Maybe in the early days of the video wars, but Beta turned out to be a far superior format than VHS. The quality was better, less quality was lost when copying, the tapes were a bit smaller, Beta tapes last longer, etc. The reason VHS won was because a Beta would only hold one hour and a VHS would hold two when they were released. Later Beta tapes would hold 5 hours in an extended play format, and they'd lose less quality in the extended format as well. Sucks that VHS had to win.
Just because something isn't used as much anymore by the majority of the people as it used to be, doesn't necessarily mean it's dead. A group at college that I'm in was designing a database for some rental place. We purposely included because we were certain that a lot of these places would still actually have tapes. And, after a quick check at a local place called Video Land, I confirmed our thoughts. Sure, it might be phasing out. But that doesn't mean it's dead.
Not when they are preserved for future generations
Monstar L
I, of course, still have mine around. I already pay enough for TV services without a monthly DVR bill... (grumble, grumble)
VHS had a good run
Why buy a new one?
DVD players are new(ish), so of course they're gonna outstrip VCR's in sales!
DUH!
Not as long as I have my original, unLucasfuckedup Star Wars tapes.
VHS still has its uses, much like the audio-cassette tape. For instance, when I need a chuck in place of my Taurus' poor brakes, I just tape together three or four. Advantages over wood: -light weight -portability -fun for the family (depending on the tapes' content.)
The number of scratched DVDs that I get from my video store, I think perhaps VHS was actually better. These DVD movies are just crap with their pausing and skipping. I bought a retail Lord of the Rings - Two Towers, and the quality and pausing on a new disc half way through were so bad, that I'm lkeaning towards thinking that we were better off with magnetic tapes. Perhaps Betamax gets the last laugh - it seems that it was better than DVD too. Add the problems with legal Linux distro DVD players, and I think the consumer has lost out.
Si tacuisses philosophus mansisses. If you had kept quiet, you would have remained a philosopher.
If you've got a half decent video collection, then do your self a favour and buy a top-o-the-line VCR now... and treat it good. You'll never be able to replace ALL the vids in your collection. (And ripping them to 'puter is ok, but you'll find this weird vid at a car boot sale in 2014 and think back to this slashdot story...)
You can still buy a good record player thanks to them bieng the tool of choice for DJs and hardcore classic moosic lovers, but if you want to replace your Betamax, thats harder... I think VCRs are more likely to go the Betamax route, than the record player route.
Remember some people still have large collections of movies in VHS format. I don't think they are going to rush out to re-buy all of these movies on DVD. Also DVD Recorders are starting to gain in popularity, but they are still a lot more expensive than VHS decks. VHS is still the most economical way to record.
Dying yes, but not dead yet.
Unless you have a big screen TV, the qualit of VHS is noticeable but almot a non-issue when it comes to recording a TV show. Until I got my DVR Lyra I still used a VCR even to record HDTV shows off of sattelite. They are fast easy and most importantly cheap. 40 dollar deck 2 dollar tape, you can catch that show that you want to see after you get back from whatever it is you're running off to. And best of all, NO MONTHLY FEE!
I can honestly say that I won't miss VHS. I stopped recording stuff to my VCR almost 2 years ago when TiVOs, recordable DVDs, etc. starting coming out. I've just been too poor to plunk down and pay the lifetime fee for a TiVO or build my own PVR.
/. TiVO mavens), DVDs that can't be copied to preserve a copy, and homebuilt PVRs that may become illegal to use to skip commercials or obsolete if content providers start ramping up DRM efforts on the signal level.
However, when I started to craft this reply -- something struck me -- VHS doesn't have DRM that prevents it from recording stuff. Or being passed around with friends. Etc., etc., etc.
Yes, you can't use a VCR to decode a DirecTV signal without a DirecTV receiver, and that might be poor man's DRM. I don't know -- were there ever VCR + sat. receivers?
And popping the write protection tab on a tape isn't so much DRM as "honey, don't you even think about taping that football game over our wedding video."
VHS was mainstream, you could record most anything that you could get a signal into the VCR, and you could pass it around at leisure. There was talk about digital VCRs coming out in the future that would tag copyrighted broadcasts, I think, and would basically introduce VHS DRM, but for the most part, it's been DRM free, right?
Now, we have TiVOs that are getting more and more restrictive or control happy (for the average consumer -- maybe not
I hated using VHS tapes, but they were pretty no-nonsense. Ahhh...the good ol' days. Now I must go back to finding some money to build a PVR, buy a TiVO, pay off my wife when I get an HDTV for the living room, etc.
IronChefMorimoto
It will never be completely dead. I'm planning to stash a couple decks for the future when people want their grandparents old VHS tapes duped to whatever storage medium is popular then.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
There are other examples of how the Chinese have altered the landscape of history.
Linux is having a tough time in gaining traction in China because piracy is so severe that both Solaris and Windows XP are essentially free. How can Linux compete against them?
VHS was kind of good for the 1980s - but now it's rather showing its age. If S-VHS (and S-VHS ET, which allows you to record S-VHS standard recordings on decent high-grade VHS tapes) had come earlier to market we might have been a bit better off. It seems that electronic picture enhancement systems from Betamax could have been applied to VHS as well (but weren't). There is still something very clunky about using cassettes the size of paperback books to record on, when recordable disc technology exists. Even though you can still buy brand-name VCRs (like Sony), they aren't made by Sony any more.
The primary use of a VCR is no longer watching videos - but recording things. DVD Recorders are not yet at a price point that makes it affordable for consumers - nor do we have a standard in place for the type of DVD to be recording to. Until DVD recorders reach a price point that is affordable for the average consumers, there will still be considerable demand for VHS to record television. I don't see digital recorders (Tivo, etc) at that point yet either.
After all, with all those cryptic DRMs manufacturers shoving through the consumers, and all the frenzy DVD format wars (DVD+-RW/HD-DVD/DVD-A/DVD-RAM/etc.), nobody's gonna abandon the tape recorder anytime soon. Maybe not making or buying new ones, but they are gonna keep replenishing the VHS tapes and fixing old units.
Once in a while, there will be a show on TV I'd like to watch, but am too occupied with other things to pay enough attention. If I know this will happen, I'll pop a trusty old VHS tape into my trusty old VCR, hit record, and forget about it until the end of the show. Later that evening/day/week, I hit rewind, wait a minute or so, and watch what I missed.
I know PVRs are capable of this as well, and yes, I have a computer with an All-in-Wonder 9700 that I use extensively for video capture, but
1) I'm in linux 95% of the time I'm on my computer, and Rage Theater II chips aren't supported yet. (Yes, I can get some decent capture cards supported under linux but at present my VCR just works without tweaking drivers or anything)
2) In Windows, I take a noticeable performance hit capturing video, and if I do anything to put pressure on the CPU, I'll get dropped frames. (When was the last time you got dropped frames on a VCR?)
and 3) I'd have to go through another step in burning the file to DVD/CD to make it portable/archivable. (Just pop the tape out and take it to a friends house right after recording)
While the format of VHS may be phased out in terms of new product releases, the relative quality (with decent quality tapes) and reliability of the machinery has earned a place in my room. I've never had dropped frames, codec/compressor incompatibilities, or my TV lock up while I'm recording with a VCR. Yes, I know I can buy a tivo, but I don't feel like spending that money when I have something that works fine at the moment. I don't plan to buy any new release movies on VHS, but I do occasionally pick up a few blanks in case something comes on I'd like to watch, without buying any new equipment.
Harrod's?? That's one store, in London. How can one store possibly qualify as "The UKs largest retailer"? If you were to RTFA, you'd see it's talking about Dixons, which is the largest electronics chain in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. They pretty much own home electronic retail in Britain. Think of it as Best Buy + Circuit City.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
I mean what happens if the HD crashes? I will probably end up loosing around 120 Gb of movies. CD burning is a pain as well, as those get scratched. So CDs and DVDs are not really the panacea if you want to store your movies. In some ways VHS and Betamax are still better.
how tivo does me one whit of good? since I don't have cable or satalite?
we only watch monies and childrens shows in my house.
How do I get a movie from my library and play it on a TiVo?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
No you stupid halfwit - not like Harrods at all. Harrods is one store. Dixons group is the biggest electrical retail chain in the UK.
Why the hell doesn't the US Govt make it compulsory to have a certain IQ before posting?
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
Harrod's is probably one of the largest shops in the world. I am sure there are warehouse shops all over which are bigger and Macy's may be too, but Harrods is most certainly the finest. It blows even the best department stores New York has to offer right out of the water.
Fans of the VHS video format have been gathering outside the home of VHS for over an hour, forming an impromptu vigil for this fallen hero of home entertainment which was found dead of Degaussclerosis in its home yesterday.
One woman, sobbing, pleaded, "But how will I record American Idol now?"
A memorial service is planned for next week. At the ceremony, the casket containing VHS's earthly remains will be inserted into a slot on the front of a specially constructed burial vault and lowered into the ground.
Unknown host pong.
I do not have a DVD player. I do not rent much movies. I do however record a lot of TV shows. My old VHS does the job well. Alternative recording devices are still way to expensive for my taste to replace my VHS and VHS offers "good enough" quality for my needs (when I record a TV show, it is for its content, not the quality of the images).
I bet because of the recording needs, VHS will still be with us for a while. Yes, other technologies are comming and gaining market share, but they still have a lot to go (in price) for VHS to disapear from households.
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
...until the movie "Electric Dreams" is released on DVD.
Technoli
You can't even start to predict that date until there's actually an agreed upon replacement for the DVD player.
Is it my PVR hooked up to a cable/satellite provider? No - the disk space problem limits its utility for building a useful library.
Is it video on demand? Maybe, but the technology has a ways to go in order to support the portability, sharability and scalability of a DVD library.
I remember the last VHS VCR I bought in Seattle in 1996, I got the cheapest model for 119.00
I remember the latest DVD player I bought in San Jose @ Target in 2004, I got the cheapest model for 39.99
The DVD player I got plays VCD DVD MP3 JPG and some other things I dont use it for...
I'm not certain why you got a funny for telling the truth.
I have over a 100 VHS tapes going back over a decade. Quite a lot of it irreplaceable.
I have (some) of the equipment needed to convert (I need a genlock), and the skill, although time is an issue.
However the majority have none of the above, and VHS is a good example of the "good enough" and "If it aint broke" principles.
Eventually I'll get a DVD recorder (once all the "whatcha gonna call it" settles down), but then there's the issue of "what's good to record on TV?"
Here's the deal. I've got this GPU with TV-in, but it doesen't have a TV-tuner. So, what do i do? I hook up my VCR to my puter so i can watch TV on my puter without a TV tuner card. It's cheap and works in Linux.
A run of the mill DVD player doesen't have TV tuning capability, therefore it sucks and is nothing that will replace my VHS and DVD drive on my puter anytime soon.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I suppose this isn't exactly on topic (read: complete tangent), but you mention a "car boot sale," which I assume means someone selling used junk from the trunk (US vernacular) of their car. Are such boot sales common? I don't recall ever seeing one in Tennessee, though yard sales/garage (carhole) sales are common around here. Is it a UK peculiarity, or maybe just more common in areas more densely populated than TN suburbs?
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
As popular as Tivo and its ilk are, I really doubt it has risen to majority use for video recording.
I'm a little surprised no-one would be buying a VCR, as they are still handy to record things...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I have actually never owned a vhs system. I dont know anyone who does. Even all of my non techie freinds exclusively use DVDs now.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
No, only tourists shop at Harrods. Dixons is the store.
No, I don't think so. CD's are still popular! I mean, how much music can I buy on DVD or anything other than CD?
Meh.
Imagine The data capacity and economics (as far as tape costs go) that would be possible with a VHS data backup drive. Right now it's cheaper to buy a new computer and build a RAID-server than to buy a tape drive & rotation tapes for a small-medium business. $1/Tape is a lot better than the $1/GB you pay for tapes now. If the digital tape format & (USB/FireWire?) interface were standardized, there could be some major competition for the drives (instead of the $1200 drives now on the market).
People might actually start making regular backups again.
I still use an 8mm projector with a gramophone for the sound.
How do slashdotters recommend the preservation of tapes?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
...long live VHS!
I still use it to record TV shows. I don't have a PVR/DVR due to the high cost. I will retire using VHS tapes is when my VCR breaks to get a PVR/DVR. The VCR is only like 3-4 years old so it has a while.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
How many programs have you recorded on your 40 dollar dvd player?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
" Not as long as I have my original, unLucasfuckedup Star Wars tapes."
Laserdiscs.
Somehow I don't think this will be as significant to future historians as the Great Wall or the Cultural Revolution.
They'll still be for sale, the high end ones that is. I can stil buy Betamax/Betacam semi-pro and pro units. It'll be a long time before high end ones go away.
If you do want to get one to last though, do get a semi-pro unit. The consumer units are all pretty cheaply made. Spend $300-$500 and you can get one that'll last for 10-20 years, even with quite a bit of use. It'll also produce a much better picture.
Personally, I'd say it's cheaper and better to just convert the movies to another, digital, format. Good thing about digital is it's easy to keep around. When you get a new digital storage medium (new discs, bigger HD, whatever) you just copy the data to it and you're fine. I still have data orignallf rom 5.25" floppies. I don't have a 5.25" drive, and haven't for years, it's just gone through intermediate phases to it's current storage.
Also VHS tapes have physical contact with the heads so each viewing wears them down more and more. Best to get them digital as soon as possible and then not worry about it.
I want a TiVo/Replay-type device that has no subscription service associated with it. I want to program it the way I program my VCR. No fancy schmancy "Record all occurrences of Seinfeld, and phone home to find out when they occur". Just a simple "Record Wednesdays on Channel 4 at 9:00PM for 1 hour", like a normal VHS VCR. I want recording quality, storage capacity, the ability to pause live TV, and the ability to watch something I recorded earlier while the system is recording something else. And I don't want to build a dedicated PC to do the job. If I can get that, I may even forego the ability to pop out the tape I recorded in the living room VCR and bring it up to the bedroom VCR to watch the rest of the show in bed. Maybe. I'll think about it. Can I get that anywhere? If not, I'm sticking with my VCR.
I'm sure there is a gnu/linux player that can do this. Where can I find one. Tell me more about how it is done. How does the DVD industry make it dificult to subvert the forced intros.
"brxref
Hmm, this is why I quit watching TV altogether, never could find any good content.
Meh.
As long as I can get an analog signal, I can tape and watch later. I do that a lot. I tape movies in the middle of the night and watch them as I ride my exercise bike. With a broadcast flag, I doubt that I can do that any more.
My All-in-Wonder card will digitize the vhs tapes and hard drives are getting cheaper, so I might not lose my collection when vhs is discontinued. I, for one, will miss it.
Long Live DVD Burners.
If the entertainment industry has its way - we might well end up in a strange topsy-turvy world where recordings of the past simply disappear from the mainstream, memories become short, and we go back to painting on the walls of our collective dens.
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
I read that article yesterday. It basically says the DVD player has replaced the VCR. They aren't directly comparable products. The VCR's main selling point is it allows you to record TV content to watch at another time. The DVD's main selling point is it allows you to watch pre-recorded content.
The VCR originally beat the laserdisc (and destroyed RCA in the process) because people wanted the ability to record. PVRs or set-top DVD-Rs might be the eventual downfall of the VCR but the current DVD players sure aren't.
The article even has a summary of the VCR that talks about how people loved the ability to record. Apparently, the author's microscopic mind couldn't make the connection that DVD players don't have that ability yet.
The CD player also didn't replace the cassette deck. They lived as complimentry products for many years until mass CD-Rs and mp3 players took over the cassette's market. Jason
ProfQuotes
Most towns in the UK advertise weekly car boot sales. I have never actually seen one, however, because they are always on a Sunday morning. Whatever that is.
flossie
Write now. Defend liberty
The cheapest ones cost around $50 or even less....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
We still use VHS tapes about as much as DVDs, still buy both of them. I prefer DVDs myself for extra features and stuff, but 70% of the time on high qualtiy VHS's you don't notice a huge lack of quality when compared to a DVD
the Political Inquirer
When my wife and I moved to Wash. DC Our moving company stole our VCR. Insured at $350 bought 12 years ago, the company paid to replace it at retail. We still had the receipt (yes we're that crazy.) We bought what we call the uber-VCR 5 years ago. Look at http://www.sonystyle.com/is-bin/INTERSHOP.enfinity /eCS/Store/en/-/USD/SY_BrowseCatalog-Start?Categor yName=hav_VHSVCR&Dept=havsony now and all they offer is combo DVD players and none over $170. Clearly money is no longer being made by VHS recorders, and the last gasp already occurred. Now if you want a record player you might as well make your own since the cost is just crazy now after an insane dip as producers changed over to CD players.
I also worked for Hollywood Video, and unless their store is by a trailer park, they're not renting VHS tapes anymore.
The BEST way is to get yourself a firewire card, plus one of those (older) sony camcorders (the digital tape models) with composite in, (internal genlock) and firewire out. Then get a copy of premiere.
Second best is a "bridge" (pinnacle or hollywood) that accepts the analog input. The software is either specific to the hardware (pinnacle) or general (premiere). Edit as needed.
The last is a video capture card feed the composite signal in. Pay, share, and free software solutions can be used (virtualDUB).
Regardless of which way you go, make certain your computer is up to the task.
is what you might be looking for.
Meh.
This announcement by Dixons smacks of not telling the whole story.
I don't know how popular PVRs are in the US market (in absolute terms; yes, I know TiVo has a cult following, but what are *most* people using?), but they have *not* yet taken off that much in Britain.
TiVo was introduced to the UK, then subsequently withdrawn (*1). Although Murdoch's Sky have since launched "Sky Plus", that only works with Sky satellite TV.
Basically, I am convinced that PVRs will be phenomenally successful (even more so than DVD players) in the UK *once* you can get a decent 80Gb model for less than UKP 100, and the Freeview (Digital Terrestial TV) electronic program guide provides a full 7-day service.
However.... this hasn't happened yet! I was considering getting a basic PVR for UKP 150.00 in February, but it was very limited, so I got a 50 quid VCR with 12-hour recording capacity instead (as a stopgap). My guess back then, and one I still hold, is that Christmas 2005 will see massive PVR sales in the UK, and the swift death of VHS.
Until then, what are people buying?
I can now buy a DVD recorder for 200 pounds, but I don't see this as a replacement for the VCR. Put simply, most VCRs were used either for watching pre-recorded films (DVD players now have this market) or time-shifting. Sure, a DVD recorder looks like a direct replacement for the VCR, but the PVR is actually a better choice for what they are actually *doing*- time shifting!
Anyway, this is beside the point. VCR sales may be falling, but I don't see recordable DVD, nor PVR sales filling the gap just yet.
Maybe I'm wrong, but it's notable that it's only the Dixons stores (which tend to be smaller and based in the city-centre) are discontinuing them, and the sibling Currys stores (larger, based mainly in retail parks) are not.
In short, I think the Dixons group are trying to improve the profit margins in their smaller stores. They just finished closing down a large number of them (good riddance).
(*1) Possibly due to bad publicity they got when they automatically uploaded a BBC program without prior notification, or maybe just bad marketing in the first place. They pushed the 'pause live video' selling-point over everything else, and.... maybe that wasn't enough to convince people to shell out.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
Seriously. They're way better than the VHS ones...
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
These shops are more about selling - the more expensive the better - why sell someone a £40 VHS video recorder when a £300 DVD recorder will do the job just as well - I recently wanted a CRT moniter - shopping at PC world - only 2 poor quality CRTs on sale - hundreds of lcds- for 3 times the price.
"VHS is dead." - Ronnie Coote
"Ronnie Coote is dead." - VHS
Is this a sigs-optional kind of place? 'Cause I am totally down with that if you know what I mean.
What about those, are those still going to be around for purchase? They're quite handy, considering I don't plan on buying DVDs to replace all the VHS tapes I own.
Anybody remember when the media folks were arguing before congress in favor of laws to allow them to restrict fair use with digital media; BECAUSE, as they said, there were analog equivalents which people could use that still preserved their fair use rights.
Only, if the anolog equipment dies (no new equipment, spare parts, video tape, etc); then where will our fair rights be? Everything will be locked up so tight in DRM by then that there will be no rights at all. And I'm sure the media people making those arguments knew full well that all they had to do was wait a little longer and then they could seize complete control.
No new fair rights are being built into new technologies. The only thing that's happing is that rights are being revoked, slowly, one new technology at a time. And it's being done so cleverly that nobody notices.
This same trick is being used by a lot of industries. Say, you don't want your automobile to monitor where you go and how fast your drive? Then just buy an older model car. But in 10 years; oops, I guess you have little choice. To bad, the laws were already passed because we argued then that you had an option.
They are everywhere throughout the UK, having been going for years and are, I believe, quite popular! The people who go, tend to be fairly religous about going, so it'll be an every Sunday event.
Don't know if they're perculiar to the UK.... but it does sound like the type of thing that *only* people in the UK would do!
The ads are an exemption (since you can fast-forward), but I've always found the annoyance of tape is in the delay. Insert tape... "damn it's at the end" ... rewind tape... rewinding ... still rewinding ... stiiiillll rewinding ......
What difference does it make whether a nation of cross-dressers,
J Edgar Hoover...
transvestites
J Edgar Hoover!
and homosexuals
J. Edgar. Hoover.
uses VHS tapes to record tv? This is an American site, for Americans.
Like J Edgar Hoover.
I doubt VHS would be phased out in Australia anytime soon, if only it were replaced with VCD.
Beta Cam!
There's a big incentive for Dixons to make this announcement in the last month before Christmas. There's a strong likelihood that this will significantly increase sales of DVD Recorders and DVR boxes in their stores. They got loads of free advertising in the press, and anyone who was dithering about hanging on with VHS is likely to be influenced, if not by the Dixons announcement, but by the rash of independent 'VHS is dead' stories that it prompts.
VHS decks probably don't make much margin for the retailer any more. Thanks to all the mechanics inside, they can't go lower in price. And after all, would there be a thrill in getting a VCR for Christmas?
BTW, there's no downside for Dixons, they'll still sell VCRs 'whilst stocks last'. Be sure they won't run out whilst they're still selling. Also, their sister retail chains will still stock them.
Why is this the second story? this was on google news yesterday. Old news people.
Well, I'm not asian, but I'd have to agree (however, I would broaden the scope to east asia in general not just China). And actually one could say it's as large an effect as the Great Wall or anything else that is memorable for decades to come. Maybe not this single act but a pattern of constantly driving culture through business. Hate it or love it, East Asia has definitely had a major hand in getting appliances and computers in the hands of every working class person in the world. Without the way they mass produce products the concept of old Billy Gates and Jobs of a PC in every home would never have come to fruition.
Seriously, make backups of everything. Blank media is dirt cheap these days, and in our household at least $cost_of_movie * %likelihood_of_destruction is far greater than $cost_of_dvd-r.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
VHS tape drives for backup was tried, back in 8088-based PC days. They used to advertise them in Byte magazine. They were a little touchy, tho, so they never gained trust, so never gained momentum.
Slashdot's name? When my compiler sees
"The UK's largest retailer of electronics is phasing out VHS VCRs. Sales of DVD players have outstripped VCRs by 40-to-1 recently. So how long until the mass market will be saying goodbye to the DVD player?"
Please tell me that was a typo.
I don't have kids. I don't know how astute your toddlers are, either. But I suggest that you don't try to 'fast-forward to where the video ended last.' The toddlers shouldn't know the difference and you get a lot more mileage out of your video entertainment products by having them re-watch the beginnings.
Perhaps it won't work. Just a thought.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Long live VHS!
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
BETA is not dead. Take a trip to south america, and you will not find VHS. All the movies will be in BETA format. Plus all tv studios also use it.
I've owned 3 VCRs over about a 15 year span and only one died after years of faithful service. I've owned 5 DVD players within about a 5 year span and have had 3 deaths, my first a Panasonic worked fine on older DVDs but either refused to play newer DVDs or the pauses were so long movies were unviewable, so it was retired. Bought a portable DVD player which refused to power up after 3 months of mild use, its replacement refuses to respond to buttons after more than about 2.5 hours of continuous use. A Phillips DVD player that I purchased about 2 years ago just died a week ago, the spindle motor appears to have quit. I've had several friends that have had similar quality issues. So I'm not entirely sure the DVD trend isn't in part due to the fact that the quality of DVD players seems so bad.
I'd much rather have DVHS than HDD-based recorders.
I'm thinking of purchasing one for my home theatre setup, actually. I find that price/performance wise, it's more of a "bang for my buck" than an HDD recorder. Even if it uses the tapes.
I remember DVD and Tivo, but I'm now mostly using BitTorrent with eyeHome by El Gato. What the hell is VHS?
To be perfectly honest, Tivo has never taken off in the US either. Like any other gadget, it has it's group of hardcore followers, but Tivo's market penetration in the US is tiny. Most people in the US have no clue as to what a Tivo is.
I don't respond to AC's.
I don't know about that, as long as you can rent a VHS at Blockbuster for 99 cents while the same movie in DVD format costs 4 bucks, wheter it's a new release or not!
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
I've seen a lot of people complaining about DVDs getting scratched. So why not make a DVD with a protective case on like a floppy? It would never leave its shell so it would never get scratched.
Yes, but how watch TV/movies anyway?
Just waste of time if you ask me, you can make better use of your time by working to get more $$$.
It's amazing how many people choose to be stupid and poor instead of rich and wise.
Some rental stores are not ordering VHS tapes anymore. New movies are only available on DVD.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
What few movies I do have are VHS. Fast forward is good enough. Rewinding is not a problem. DVD and VHS look EXACTLY IDENTICAL as far as I'm concerned.
What I mean by control is this:
Last time I watched a DVD movie, I was forced to sit through a bunch of obnoxious previews, and the "fast forward" button didn't work until they all ended, and that really truly pissed me off.
My computer is not a multimedia device.
I expect it to play when I say play, stop when I say stop, pause when I say pause, and fast forward when I say fast forward. All else is irrelevant.
Plus, I can count on being able to back up my tapes. Backing up DVD runs afoul of copyright law.
It's sort of like a swap meet. You can load up your car/pickup full of stuff you want to sell, then go to the place. You pay some amount of money ($20 or so), and then you get a designated spot and you can sell stuff to the other people who come. People who come to buy stuff either pay nothing to get in or they pay only a nominal fee ($3 or so).
My other first post is car post.
Nothing beats the convenience of good ol' analog VHS. For example, a weekly program in my VCR tapes 'The West Wing.' If I'm not home Wednesday night I end up with a copy anyway. If I want to watch it in the bedroom I pop the tape out and watch it there - If I want to watch it with my girlfriend I pop the tape in her machine at her place. When I'm done I just rewind and tape something else over it. No burning, no hassle.
Summary: Love triangle with a recluse, a talking computer, and a girl. Miles Harding is a nerdy recluse who can't seem to avidly communicate with women. A lovely girl moves in next door (Virginia Madsen) and shows interest in her new neighbor, but he's just too weird to relate. He buys a fancy computer and, even after he spills liquid and burns up the electrical circuits on it, it's still in good shape and working. Only thing is, that it's a special artificial computer, with better communicative skills than Miles. And like a science fiction rendition of Cyrano de Bergnac, the computer starts delivering the enticing love lines to Mile's neighbor. So, she thinks she's in love with romantic Miles, but actually he's just supplying the pretty face. The computer's doing all the leg work. But, Miles faces stiff competition from his only friend and guide to women--a damned computer--when the computer starts learning about human emotion and falls in love with the girl, too.
But what do most handheld video cameras record to these days? Direct-to-DVD?
...one of the cheap phillips ones, only cost £140.00 and writes on DVD RW's. You can erase and reuse those around 1000 times, a few more than most VHS tapes I've ever come accross.
I record a show, I can pop it out and take it round a friends house to watch (everyone I know has a DVD player). And when I'm done, I simply select "erase disc" from the menu and program something else in to record.
I am NaN
At Best Buy, I can only ever find 2 purely VHS players, and maybe a few more that are VHS/DVD Player combos. Personally, I think it's a good move, because we should be phasing in DVD recorders (better quality, long lasting, no tape, etc.). The problem is that my grandma (and people in her generation) only know VHS (and she has stacks of VHS tapes, believe me), so when one breaks and we have to replace it, it's really a heartache.
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
Bach is dead!
to me the vhs was dead years ago.. i thought this was almost completely obvious. only if my university would figure it out though, it sucks trying to find someone with a vcr to play a tape a professor wants you to see...
There's a great article in the Guardian about how everyone used to watch the same TV shows at the same time.
Read Epic the first RPG novel.
... Buy a new DVD player. ;)
Counterpoint: scene selection is almost invisible to toddlers I have been around. That means that when it is nearly bedtime, you can skip past the majority of Finding Nemo directly to the fun bits at The End, and have it look like The End. Toddlers know what that means, and off we happily go to brush our teeth and put on jammies.
Ahh... scene selection. Nemo is MUCH more watchable the 20th time if you go from school to turtles to reunion to THE END.
3 months ago I put together a MythTV setup with a MediaMVP running mvpmc (http://mvpmc.sourceforge.net/). I haven't touched either of my 2 VCRs since, except to unplug one of them to free up a socket.
The VCR is indeed dead - at least in my house.
I may have missed if the good ol' DVD/VHS combo unit was mentioned in a post. For about 100 bucks (US) (Brits, how many quid?) one can have the best of both worlds. (I AM NOT A POLITICIAN!!!!!)
/.'ers. =)
Optical v. Magnetic. Sounds like it should be on PPV for
Yeah, but I've had a lot of trouble with poor quality VHS. I have a copy of "Tess" on VHS that has a horizontal bar that appears 1/3 the way down the screen about halfway through and lasts to the end of the tape. There's a lot of jitter from the tapes. Sometimes I hear a crinkling sound from the VHS deck, and I know that the tape has wrapped itself around the guts of the machine, and it'll be a bitch to get it out. More than once I've had to physically take the deck apart to get the jammed tape out. And, of course, rewinding is slow and sucky. VHS, begone.
I like the product I buy to keep on working as it's supposed to at the time I bought it, not have the company reduce its value later. I'll pick something trustable instead of TiVO.
At least with VHS VCRs, you can fastfoward through the opening advertisements. With DVD players, you cannot. It's annoying, it's anti-user friendly, and there's just way too much greed overall.
Unfortunately, until something big happens, this will be the way it is.
And VHS VCRs aren't dead. Low income people will still be purchasing them for dirt cheap prices. And not all VHS material is on DVD format yet. Besides home movies, there's stuff that's been bought on VHS years back that hasn't been out on DVD yet.
This might be a perfect cheap solution:
GoVideo standalone DVD burner with VCR $200
According to the article, one store in England is phasing out VCRs because it is no longer feasible to fill up their shelf space with a product that is not moving. Plain old economics. This could mean that the market is saturated. This does not mean that VCRs are dead and buried (yet, anyway).
I remember hearing about the death of VCRs before. About 2 or 3 years ago, someone told me that the companies that make VCRs had stopped making them. This person told me that no more new ones would be made and so stores would just be clearing out their inventories and then only DVD's would be available. Okay - that never happened.
From the article:
"Sales of VCRs are in decline but we still sell a lot of them. As long as there is a market for them we will continue to sell them."
This shows me that VCRs will die only if no one ever buys them anymore or at least when so few do that its not worth it to manufacturors to keep making them or for retailers to sell them.
Sig cancelled due to lack of interest
Other day was waiting in line at the supermarket and saw someone doing their weekly shopping - next to washing up liquid, vegtables, and milk was a DVD player, the market is saturated with cheap players that you have to re-buy every year. Its a pitty DVD recorders havn't caught on much, its like living in the dark ages where cheap VHS players couldnt record! When cheap recorders come around then i'll say VHS is dead.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
Yea, not to mention why the c64 beat out the atari 8 bit line, which was clearly superior, what with pokey, gtia, and antic and all..
please share a bit more info with us...ie what i steh model u r using , how easy it is to program etc.
cheers
Wanted : A Signature.
Many of the older (mechanical tuner, die cast chassis, top loading) VHS machines have AGC and sync circuitry that seems unfazed by Macrovision encoding. I have an ancient Panasonic PV-1000 that I keep around just for this reason. Short of the occasional drive belt or sensor bulb replacement, the thing just refuses to die. Of course, the fact that the thing originally sold for close to $1000 may have something to do with that. This thing is built like the proverbial "brick shithouse".
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
My dear stratjakt
,our fav stores (Harrods , harvey nics , selfridges ) are like the extremely private part of the female of the species , its all about the quality . Size , my dear chap , isnt even in the picture.
Please permit me a small analogy , which might aid your comprehension
Wanted : A Signature.
"The reality is that the Chinese killed VHS".
0 408/03/t20040803_1400295.shtml
thanks to chinese cheap labor, you can work less and still maintain a high quality of life. you are actually taking advantage of chinese cheap labor, and at the same time it is so easy to blame chinese for this vhs-to-dvd transition. some companies do make a fortune by pushing dvd into the market, but not those chinese factories. http://en.ce.cn/Industries/Consumen-Industries/20
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Horror/Sci Fi writer Stephen King was found dead in his Maine home this morning. There weren't any more details. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
This is funny because i just disconnected my vcr and put it in the closet not even 10 min ago and then i find this article.
... as long as DVD players can't record shows or movies. I mean, what's the point if I can't record my shows and watch them on any TV I want? For this reason, VHS is here to stay until DVD players can do the same. Besides, I still have a ton of VHS movies (I just bought a few more recently), and I am not about to throw them away.
Letting the Media conglomerates decide when you can
fast-forward is part of the original deal to get a license to build
DVD players. Google was not immediately helpful, but the truth is out there...
The VHS is dead... long life the VHS!
What made VHS win (besides the fact it could record longer than Beta machines) was the fact JVC (a wholy-owned subsidiary of Matsushita Electic Company) offered very generous licensing terms to build VHS-compatible VCR's and VHS tapes. It also helped that VHS quickly matched Beta's attempt at higher quality recordings with VHS Hi-Fi for better-quality sound and Super VHS for better-quality pictures in the late 1980's.
Since the VCR is on the way out, the next logical product to be squashed by evolution is the DVD Player...which is what the author was rhetorically asking about.
I knew that in the end that Betamax would finally win and prove it's superior format. Oh wait... Betamax is gone. Long live uh uh Amiga? 8 Track, perhaps? Er uh LP? No er 78's. No er wax cylinders, maybe? And the really sad thing is that we can't blame any of it on Bill Gates and Microsoft.
Is that the march of progress I hear?
No, it's the sound of thousands of VHS tapes tumbling over lined up like dominoes because that's all they are good for now.
I'll bet you can't do that with all the AOL CD's in the world!
When my parents' vcr broke i gave them mine. I wasn't using it anyway. Also i gave them about 20 tapes to record things on. I had compiled a lot of stuff on these tapes over the years. Duckman, Simpsons, Futurama, Young Ones, Bottom...
I thought i'd want to keep these tapes forever but i realized by the time i would actually have time to watch all that stuff again it would probably be available on a much nicer format anyway (hdd, dvd, whatever comes next). Same thing with my 200+ audiotapes. I enjoyed them at the time, but they didn't stand the test of time, i just can't be bothered with them anymore. I put them on an ebay type site for the low price of 0 and there hasn't even been 1 person responding.
But my parents are happy with my vcr to record sports and crappy crime tv series. They don't even own a dvd player.
And neither do i (well, not a stand-alone that is, i do have a NEC dvd burner i rarely use)
Sample this!
In the UK supermarkets sell VHS recorders for 50 quid or so - who'd go to a high street store where they cost 150 quid?
Try a DVD recorder. After initial reliability problems, the cheap Philips ones are now very good. When dual-layer ones become popular, they'll be even better.
The only excuse for keeping a VCR is if you have a huge tape library, and you could easily rip that to VCD on your PC (DVD is a total waste for a VHS conversion, and most DVD players will take VCD).
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
"Ghosts in the machine" by the Guardian TV correspondent of many years standing Mark Lawson here
Artificial intelligence is the study of how to make real computers act like the ones in the movies.
Neurosis and psychosis because the parent refuses to reward bad behavior? You, sir, are what is wrong with America today.
A relative of mine works in a small family owned consumer electronics shop and they have now been absolutely flooded with demand for DVD recorders. They are reaping some of the spoils of this publicity coup but I bet Dixons will be making a bundle as DVD recorders are suddenly the must-have purchase for the festive season.
...ya silly turds. My only DVD player is on my computer in my room, which is devoid of couch and recliner alike. Therefore, if you please, I'd rather that Blockbuster keeps supplying VHS tapes so that I might enjoy my movies in the comforts of my living room, where my 2 dollar vcr and 10 dollar television from my local thrift shop (I'm a college student, you see) keep me entertained on those weekend evenings when I have no homework to do.
In your best '30's gangster accent
[Max Beta] > The enemy of my enemy is my friend, see. Together you and me, we're unstoppable, SEE; unstoppable! You and me, Dee V. Dee, we'll take over this whole world.
[Dee V. Dee] > The spin I'm geeting says watch out for this 2-Bit Torrent cat. Word is he's got a killer distribution network and he thinks he's reeeeel swanky.
[Max] > Don't you worry, see. We've got the dock workers, see, and the packet switchers. We'll get him, see. We'll get him and send him to DR. M. He'll never work in this town again, SEE!
Due to portability of tapes and the existing userbase, VHS will probably live on for a little bit more. For example, I will sometimes record TV shows for my girlfriend who's VCR at college can't record for some reason. Usually the next time I see her, I give her the tape and she watches it at home or at school. But if I recorded these on TIVO or any DVR, its not that simple, at least not yet. So in that regard, VHS will be there.
Gotta love parodies...
Information wants to be anthropomorphized!
You're right that PVRs and DVD-Rs have yet to hit critical mass yet. For all Dixons have thrown the 40:1 ratio about these last few days about DVD players to VCRs, VHS still comfortably outsells its recordable competition.
What this is actually about is two things:
1) Dixons are attempting to beat their image of "only for idiots who can't shop online, or believe that their shop assistants know one end of an extension lead from the other", and promote themselves as meccas for the tech-savvy. Never going to happen, but they're trying. Saying "we're too modern for VHS" helps that.
2) Its not that no-one is buying VCRs, but that the margins are miniscule, thanks to competition from Tesco and Asda. They would much rather sell you a 700 quid DVD+HD PVR box (that will, in turn, be obsolete in two years when HD Sky launches) than a VCR that costs one twentieth of that.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I've got great results with an el-cheapo SAA7130 capture card, an S-VHS and a Hi8 video (even though the tapes are not recorded in S-VHS or Hi8, the s-video output makes a big difference - think of what colour crawl does to compression algorithms).
Car boot sales are also common in New Zealand.
NZ Electronics Enthusiasts: Check out my Trade Me Listings
You gotta have a VCR otherwise you can't timeshift your favourite once-a-week show.
I thought I'd be able to do without a VCR when my last one died, but then you end up missing those late-night Grands Prix or the odd episode of The Bill. So I ended up hunting down an AU$34 (~US$20) new stereo VCR from a reputable retailer. No worries!!!
Can someone explain to me what is funny and/or interesting about that flash film he's linked to. I watched for a while and almost fell asleep it was so boring.
Now if only the cassete tape would DIE!
Not that I like VHS in in any way shape or form ... but my wife likes to tape shows and since we can't afford a PVR we have to settle for taping the old fassion way. Anyway, to make a long storry short, we went to the two walmarts in our city, and both were completely sold out of Blank VHS tapes ..... so I guess some people will not let it die :-)
1981 was the year when everyone in the UK wanted a video recorder, because Prince Charles was marrying Lady Diana Spencer and for some reason, people wanted not only to watch it, but to have a permanent record of the event. My parents went out and rented a massive Sanyo Betacord 9300. First in the street, no visual search, one-event timer. Dog's bollocks. Saved my mother's sanity when the telly blew up one night just as Coronation Street was about to start ..... we just slammed in a spare tape and hit "record" {even though it had piano keys, you didn't need to press record and play together, which was a little weirdy in those days}.
.....
..... not much chance of that these days though, since the BBC is about the only advert-free broadcaster left in Europe, and there isn't enough anti-advertising sentiment in high places. Quelle honte.}
My first VHS was an even older Ferguson 3V22 {rebadged JVC} with no freeze-frame -- there was a pause, but it blanked out the screen. And on this one you did have to press record and play together {as it should be IMHO}. It was built like a tank, all belt-driven from one motor and full of sensors, and I should have hung onto it. A new head drum would have fixed it.
I bought my last VCR two years ago, knowing that it was going to be replaced by some kind of disc recorder. Then, in the January Sales of 2003-2004, I bought a Philips DVD recorder, which quite possibly is the best thing I ever bought that plugs in {except my bread maker}. It was expensive but it was worth it.
I don't really think it's a big deal that Dixons are stopping selling VCRs. They are a big unit-shifter, but they're by no means the only place to buy VCRs from. What I do think is a bit worrying is that so many DVD machines are play-only devices. That's sort of the ultimate copy-protection, if you can't make the recordings yourself at all. The combination of a play-only DVD and a non-transportable HDD TV-recorder might look flashy on the surface, but scratch away a little and you'll see a lot less generality of purpose under there. Video cassettes could be carried around anywhere there was a machine that could play them; the only worry you had was whether the machine was PAL, SECAM or NTSC, and chances are the worst you would get, even with the wrong kind of player, would be a mono picture and maybe scratchy sound. Hell, that was only a factor if you were going overseas. And you could fast-forward through Simon Bates' patronising speech about piracy at the beginning of every film
At least in the UK, multi-region players and fast-forward-block defeating are very definitely legal; and so will DeCSS be, if it ever gets as far as a Crown Court. {It was very nearly made law that broadcasters had to transmit an 'advertisement warning signal' to allow TV-recorders to distinguish editorial content from advertising
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Don't worry, some of us get the joke. (Tragically, no mod points though or you'd be +1 funny.)
Why are all DVDs sold in the UK widescreen only? It would be trivial to encode the information onto the disc to produce a pan-scan version on demand. For this reason alone I often prefer watching things on VHS on my non-widescreen TV.
think "flea market"
As a side note, reading to your kids can be a blast. The trick is not to slog through the same "little golden books" every night. Kids are pretty smart little critters, and can cope with rather sophisticated story lines if you can make the reading lively enough.
Up next - "Through The Looking Glass".
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I'll look into those. (Except MythTV, which is exactly what I'm *not* looking for, but thanks anyway.)
"... what do you need the genlock for? Anything I've ever seen described as a genlock is a thing for synchronising either computer graphics generators or frame stores to an incoming video signal. I can't see how that would be terribly helpful in capturing analogue video into a PC."
Basically genlocking is like what a PLL does for say radio. The majority of VCR's out here are of an "adequate" quality. Good enough for tolerant TV's to handle. However the signal from VCR's leaves much to be desired, especially if you're going to archive material. The genlocking helps steady the signal, and makes the rest of the clean-up easier by feeding them a good signal to work with.
Personally, I still own a VCR because I still have VHS tapes and the library still rents them. Although I'm thinking of getting rid of the TV and routing the VCR output to my computer monitor...
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
In other words, a caddy drive like Macs used to have, except the disc comes in a caddy already so you don't need to swap discs in the caddys or buy piles of disc caddys.
That's a timebase corrector. My Hi8 camera has one built in which is "good enough". If you're capturing to a computer, then there's little point - you only end up digitising the signal twice.
VHS won't be dead to me until my VCR moves from on top of my TV to The Closet of Obsolete Techonolgy with my Psion Revo, Minidisc player and Microsoft Handheld PC Professional Edition device. I still use VHS when I have to, not everything is on DVD yet, and recording stuff on DVD is still expensive and not as easy as popping in a VHS tape.
Now they all garble any recordings you try to make that have the DO NOT COPY signal in them. The time to buy a quality cassette video cassette *recorder* was a few years back.
In the US we have thes things called yard sales where people put all the junk they want to get rid of on the lawn and people will just stop when they see it.
Smoking is an expensive, slow, and unreliable method of suicide.
...thinks for a moment...
:-D
Yep, I've seen this both on the Simpsons and Six Feet Under, so you must be right!
It's the Philips DVDR 70, does dvd+r +rw, very easy to program (simply go into a menu and either enter the video+ programming number or select a date and time from the on-screen menu, everything is done through a snazzy looking menu that appears on your TV).
It's got s-video, scart and comp in, scart out, audio out, svideo out.
All in all a very nice machine indeed, it's crazy how cheap it is now.
I am NaN
I seem to recall these being available for Amiga back in the day, though I can't remember if they attached to the parallel port or the Amiga's own RF modulator.
Windows is only $500 if your time is worthless.
I have a friend with four kids and a year old black lab, and I swear he feeds them a steady diet of sugar and cocaine. Hyper. Anyway, he still uses VHS because the tapes will survive just about anything other than the backseat of a car in summer. Any DVD's he buys he makes copies of, because the kids will manage to trash the disk the second you aren't looking.