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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.
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
Not when they are preserved for future generations
Monstar L
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.
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
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.
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.
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...
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
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.
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 only thing you have no control over with a DVD is the intro sequence, where you are often forced to sit through the FBI/Interpol warning and maybe the distributors log
Ever watch one of the older Disney DVDs? They used to make that "intro" into a 10 minute commercial for their other DVDs. It was just like going to the damn movie theatre.
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.
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My DVD player, a cheap far eastern thing, has a cunning feature where if you insert a disk, press STOP twice while the intro is playing and then press PLAY, on about 90% of disks it'll immediately start playing title 1. It misses the intro, the warnings, the menus, everything. It's great.
Region hackable, too --- they know where the money is.
> They aren't directly comparable products.
You are missing the bigger picture.
This represents not only the death of the VHS recorder, but of broadcast television itself!
People *used to* record TV. Now they watch canned content.
The VHS-HiFi replaced the 1/4" reel to reel for me, and until DAT came along it was the only option for high bandwidth audio. (I'm a musician, could care less about recording TV programs).
But all that is a long gone era, in this day of cheap 24-bit multitrack digital.
>Apparently, the author's microscopic mind
>couldn't make the connection that DVD players
>don't have that ability yet.
There are cheap-ish DVD+/-RW recorders, and also cameras. Where have you been?
>The CD player also didn't replace the cassette
>deck.
The CD-R sure as hell did! Ok, so there are a couple of chumps who will still buy a Nakamichi Dragon for $1800. It took a disgustingly long time for CD-R to reach the market, but that's another matter.
I don't guess you remember how long it took them (Ampex) to give us *Cassette* in the first place, do you?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Strangely enough, I've never seen anything of Macrovision; I'm certain it exists because everyone talks about, but none of the VCR's i've owned seem to have problems with it.
Just lucky, I guess?
I just tested it, recorded a couple of minutes of chronicle of riddick from DVD; clear picture.
I, of course, Immediately destroyed the VHS tape so as to comply with our benevolent overlords at the MPAA.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
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 :-)