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The VHS is Dead

Posted by michael on from the long-live-the-VHS dept.

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.

3 of 470 comments (clear)

  1. Actually, VHS wasn't better. by DurendalMac · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:Actually, VHS wasn't better. by geekoid · · Score: 4, Informative

      actually, Sony killed Betamax in the consumer market because they expected everyone to pay them a license just to distribute movies on the tapes.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  2. Re:No it ain't dead. by SoCalChris · · Score: 4, Informative

    Man, if only you were in a position to...teach them patience or something. But nevermind, you're just a parent.

    Let me guess how many kids you've got...

    Zero, right? No matter what you try, most toddlers don't have patience. It isn't something you can teach a 2 year old. If you really think that you can, you've got a big surprise coming when you do have kids.