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Reports of VHS's Death Highly Exaggerated
aicrules writes "What does it take to ensure that a technology choice will remain relevant and available to the general public? Well, being sold by Wal-Mart is certainly pretty high on that list. According to a CNN/Money article, Wal-Mart Stores will continue to sell VHS tapes for as long as its customers want them. With Best Buy, Circuit City, and Target all dropping sales of the VHS medium, how long can VHS hold out? What is the major reason for people still sticking with VHS?"
There's a poll in the article asking " Are you planning to replace your VCR with a DVD player? "
I guess that sums up why VCR and VHS tapes are still selling, because while DVD players are pretty advanced and cheap right now, DVD recorders are still expensive to most households, and what are consumers going to do with their precious VHS tapes?
What is required is a VHS+DVD recorder with easy to use interface to transfer VHS to DVD, that'll be the first step to move consumers away from VHS.
I'm moving all my CDs to DVDs. It's pretty easy to do that with a software, and let's not forget that my DVD writer is also capable of reading old CDs, that's why I didn't think so much while buying a DVD writer.
I suppose if technology moves too quickly without sufficient transitional period, older technology might get a chance to stay longer.
Rock that crushes, Paper & Scissors that don't matter.
The advantages of the blanks should be clear enough... It's still not cheap/easy for most folks to record TV any other way.
What is the major reason for people still sticking with VHS?
It looks nice in the back of their horse-drawn buggy?
"This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has got to go." -- Oscar Wilde on his deathbed
If it remains profitable to sell it then I don't see why it will disappear. Some shops might find out that the demand is not worth stocking VHS but on the other hand some stores might come up that only cater for the VHS clients. Somehow a la Vinyl. If the demand persists.
1: My wife is pregnant with twins, and as much as I'd like to get a DVD of the ultrasounds, they spend their money on staying abreast with the latest childcare technologies, just like they should. So I need VHS to take those ultrasounds home with me (just did this today, in fact);
;)
2: My grandparents (in their late 80s) were very reluctant to accept VCR technology; moving them to DVD will be impossible. And we want them to see the ultrasounds.
saying my dvd player is always flashing 12:00 just doesn't sound right.
For myself and a dozen million other people, VHS is still the cheapest easiest way to record TV programs. Yeah, yeah, I'm behind the tech curve because I don't TIVO or digitally record tv. I don't get tv via bit torrents and honestly, I just can't bring myself to spend the money or the time learning all of that. VCR. Put in Tape. Hit Record. Done.
This is not the way to build a lasting empire.
What is the major reason for people still sticking with VHS?
We'll always have our VCR because my wife has nearly every Disney movie ever made on VHS (sad, I know). And since we have a VCR, we can get our 5 year old VHS tapes that are often cheaper than DVDs. And honestly, they hold up quite a bit better with a 5 year old than DVDs and CDs do.
Tech, life, family, faith: Give me a visit
1. It's the easiest way to record something. Not as convenient/intelligent as DVR/Tivo, but damned easy.
2. It's cheap for both the VCR and the media.
And, if you have small kids they want to start watching the movie from where it stopped the last time, not from the beginning or the beginning of the DVD chapter.
I know a fanatic who refuses to watch movies on computer screen. He records Divx to VHS tapes and then watches them on TV, from the player.
Perverted, isn't it?
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I got my VHS 6 years ago when I moved out into my first flat. Naturally Iit had to be the cheapest one available. It contains one tape since half a year now and records my daily dose of Trek.
Easy. Programmed it once never runs out of tape. At the end it just rewinds and starts over. Quality is ok, as I don't need high definition to watch nice scifi stories before bedtime. I won't replace it unless it breaks.
I really like digital HD-recorders a la Tivo but I don't think my mum would throw away her extensive opera collection on VHS just yet.
I will replace mine, however, if it dies with a DVR. If, by the time, there is still one out there with a sane DRM policy that is...
What is the major reason for people still sticking with VHS?
Pornography, of course.
-kgj
-kgj
"What is the major reason for people still sticking with VHS?"
;-)
Easy, it gives me warmer, deeper, and groovier playback on my vintage VHS machine, compared to the over-produced, sterile playback of a DVD.
Say all you want, but I can just see and hear the difference, the resonance, the WARMTH. I just love tubes.
"What is the major reason for people still sticking with VHS?""
You mean besides the obvious? (consumer protest of DVD due to the region coding system.)
Admittedly VHS winds up having some of the same "features" but at least this is a byproduct of 2 different standards (PAL vs NTSC). It's not an intentionally designed feature like DVD region coding, and it's not as restrictive as DVD region coding is.
-Matt
VHS is dying.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Because "Erik the Viking" (or insert your favorite old movie here) is not out on DVD yet.
It's where your kids keep the toast they didn't want to eat just yet.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
In this case, it was a press release that corrects an earlier (apparently incorrect) news article that had been making the rounds. I'd say that this is one of those cases where the press release takes care of the reporting all by itself.
...is because Han shoots first like I remember! ;)
libertarianswag.com
Because with VHS tapes you can 'Re-record, not fade away'
My other sig is crap too
Well, perhaps some of us don't cream our pants for every new technology. Perhaps some of us don't feel like cable is worth the cost, and therefore devices like Tivo are worthless. Perhaps some of us don't have DVD recorders. Perhaps some of us don't feel like making a "media center".
Perhaps some of us have VCRs that work, and don't feel like it's money well spent to invest in a something new which isn't useful to us. Perhaps some of us don't really like TV so that we consider it worthwhile to invest in something new when something we have works.
I really am insulted sometimes when people act as if I'm not doing my patriotic duty when I don't rush out and buy a 42" digital television and cable and tivo and x and y and z. My 20 year old zenith and VHS are good enough for me to watch a rented flick every now and then.
lorem ipsum, dolor sit amet
It's because you know it works, without having to worry about drivers or anything. You can buy VHS tapes anywhere, and you know they'll work in your VCR, and that you can play them back in any other VCR.
Craig Steffen
http://www.craigsteffen.net
As someone with four younger brothers, I know why my folks buy VHS rather than DVD: durability. The primary problem with DVDs is the fragility of the medium. An 6-year-old can manage a VHS change fairly proficiently, but, given that dropping a DVD on a hard surface can irreparably damage it, wouldn't likely be allowed near DVDs.
Additionally, children are not nearly as likely to be very critical of signal quality issues. The parents of said children then would be less likely to purchase DVDs over VHS, given the elimination of this DVD advantage, and the difference in retail price.
The emergence of affordable media without the durability downside will displace DVD and VHS soon enough, but DVDs will never succeed in eliminating their magnetic media competition. In addition to the durability issue, memory cards are easily recordable and reusable (a trait in which they surpass VHS's diminishing capabilities in this area).
Until those prices come down a bit more, look for WalMart and other family-savvy retailers to keep people on both sides of the fence happy with available substitutes.
1. Not everyone has a Tivo, and while people are recording programming on VHS, they are likely to pick up a VHS every now and then particularly becaus of point #2.
2. PRICE!!!! Have you priced VHS compared to DVDs? It's the same racket as cassettes versus CDs. They are more expensive to produce, like cassettes, but are usually a fraction of the price. Hmmmmm. While the prices of VHS are so much less than DVDs, there will still be a market, especially at discount places like Wal-mart.
Prof. Farnsworth - "Oh a lesson in not changing history from Mr I'm-My-Own-Grandpa!"
Let's see. The vast majority of households already have VCR technology.
There is a huge installed base of players and media.
It's the only recording technology the average home consumer understands and is willing to invest time in. My mom can record on a VCR. The letter PVR and DVR don't mean anything to her.
It's only in the last few years that 1.44" floppy drives are no longer included in PCs by default. I personally haven't had data on a floppy in quite some time, I've still recently used 'em for boot disks.
TV stations have been using video cassette to archive video for as long as we've had them.
Why does someone always get shocked by the fact that technology which has been massively accepted by the consumer market doesn't suddenly go away overnight just because someone else builds something new??
Hell, how many people do you know who own manual (or even electric) type-writers.
Despite what you've read in Wired magazine, a new digital technology doesn't automatically obviate and replace and older, clunkier technology. Sometimes the sheer inertia of that old technology takes a while to get rid of.
Heck, how many Windows 3.11 or Window 95 boxes are still out there?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
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I've vaguely heard of VHS... isn't it a bit like Tivo?
Read reviews of shopping cart software
I want things I buy to last a long time. I am thrilled when I spend $100 on something and it doesn't need to be replaced in a year. There's a reason that earlier generations of American families had more money (well, net worth) than current generations, and while it is a GREAT oversimplification to boil it down to consumer tendencies, it is certainly one of the possible suspects.
I can't tell you how often I walk into a house and see a 20 year old TV or a 100 year old piece of furniture. I also can't tell you the last I thought to say "Man, that particular digital component was really well made...I shouldn't have to replace that for decades (not "years" or "months").
Older manufactured equipment was simply made better, and some of us prefer it to spending more of our liquidity on the latest and greatest (which, as stated above, tends to be more poorly made and hence, more quickly replaced).
If this post sounds a little "that's the way it was in my day, and WE LIKED IT", too bad....it's simply a reflection of my own anecdotal experience and preferences.
You need a better DVD player. Mine remembers the 'last played' location of up to 40 discs.
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
Umm, I have 20 year old VHS tapes. Most of my 7 year old DVDs have issues. You have that argument reversed, although the rest are valid. Do some googling on DVD rot- the oxide layers on most cds and dvds die in under a decade.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
also, as someone who is leaving work early right now to go to an ultra-sound to find out the sex of my incoming baby, they will record the ultrasound for you, but only if you bring your own VHS tape.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */
No lie. With DVD players out that are 30 bucks but don't work reliably out of the box, people will still keep their VHS around and stick to VHS tapes because they are more reliable.
First hand, mother experience.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Good Lord, if "No Rocketman" is the best argument against DVDs, then DVDs win. ;-)
One of the main reasons I prefer to watch movies at home rather than the theater is because of the ads. I don't want to sit thru 15 minutes of ads before I watch a movie. Guess what? I've never bought a VCR tape of a movie that has ads on it. Guess what? I've never tried to fast forward through something at the beginning of a VCR tape and have my player tell me "NO! the maker of this DVD insists that you have to watch an ad first! Just because you bought it does not mean you can skip the ads! Sucker!"
I record TV shows to DVD and buy shows on DVD that I know don't have ads on them, but for the most part I prefer VCR. I'd rather forgo the convenience of not having to rewind if it means I am not supporting a system that will eventually be used to force me to play more ads in my home. I'm sick to death of all the inane chatter and insipid "buy me and you'll be cool" shit. I'm sure as hell not going to pay for more of it.
Oh yeah, and VCR tapes, despite being more expensive to manufacture, are cheaper (even if you factor in the cost of a blank DVD for me to encode it on).
Jesus! What's the matter with VHS? Tom Hanks used them to tie a damn raft together. He woulda died without em. Long live VHS
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
According to About.com, it affects only a small % of discs. Of course, like all digital data, replication is essential to keeping eternal life (despite the best efforts of the MPAA to stop you ;) ). More about the overalarming cries of DVD rot from PC Magazine, Manifest Technologies, and Enterprise Networks and Servers.
Your 20 year old VHS tapes should have suffered significant quality loss by now. It doesn't have to be defective to go bad; VHS slowly goes bad on its own.
"This wallpaper is killing me. One of us has got to go." -- Oscar Wilde on his deathbed
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
but isn't [porn] what the internet is for???
... and God help the guy who caught his unit on a centerfold staple.)
You may be too young to remember, but old farts such as myself used to watch porn on tape because there was no internet.
Hell, I remember before tape, pornography was actually printed on paper.
How we survived that dark age, I don't know. (Wait, yes I do -- a vigorous program of masturbation while closely scrutinizing the slick delights of Miss November
-kgj
-kgj
With a VCR, I can record as much as I want (for however many tapes I need), and *keep* those recordings - for as long as they will last. Case in point, my wife and I have *every* episode of X-Files recorded - plus every episode of Millenium. Sure, I could buy the DVDs, and the video would be better - but sometimes watching those old commercials can be entertaining by themselves. Plus, I didn't have to pay (again - because I already paid the cable company once).
I think that is why people aren't adopting "new recording media" - the new methods are locked down with DRM and such, or they aren't easy to share with friends, family, or even withing the same house (among sets in the house).
I think if a company came out and made a TIVO-like device (it wouldn't even need a program guide, but if it did, it would be great) that could record many hours of video, and easily network to any existing network or PC in your house, so that any PC (or any other of the same recording device) could "watch" the library of collected videos, and/or download them, etc - with NO DRM (ie, a straight MPEG2 or MPEG4 video) - to a fileserver (if you have one), etc - and make it all fairly easy to use (it wouldn't have to be dead simple - but making it very easy to use just for the machine and others on the network - maybe a built in wireless router or AP which would mesh network with other machines in the house?). Perhaps add USB2 or Firewire to make it easy to expand the hard drive size (or, make a "front load" hard drive bay for a hard drive upgrade option or something?).
Add on top of all that the ability to play MP3s from anywhere on the drive or on the network, audio/video inputs, ability to record audio to MP3, perhaps a DVD drive as well, plus web browsing, and give the MP3 player some nice visualizations for party use - you would have a killer box.
However, I don't expect to ever see such a thing, at least not in the near term, which I why I am planning on a custom box (right now centered on an old I-Cue PC Book PC box with a DVD drive, plus a small hard drive and networked to my Samba server - but maybe later if I like the setup, since it can't record, maybe building a Myth TV box).
Of course, as of late, for the past couple of weeks my wife and I have dropped even watching TV - we have started listening to books on CD from the library, so I think the TV is likely to become just "another monitor", mainly for movies and such...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
But isn't that the best argument for the death of VHS? More specifically, isn't pornography on the Internet the death knell for the VHS? Seriously, no longer do you have to stand the humiliation of having to go rent a pornographic video.
Two points here.
First, I've got favorite mix tapes on VHS. I'm too lazy or whatever to digitize them.
Second, I got over the humiliation, with practice. Stand tall, look the clerk in the eye, make your purchase -- it's just business. Moreover, it seems that while Americans are fettered by sexual shame, most Europeans have an open attitude about the matter. Granted, I'm an American -- but I'm no less a man than any Euro-porn-hound, I tell you what.
-kgj
-kgj
Bought a VRC this year. It has a death simple UI, no RTFM required. The hardware and medium is cheap. You can buy VHS cassettes nearly everywhere. No format war, no DRM, highly interchangeable. Quality is not the best, but that doesn't bother me at all, because my cable network is analog too.
I made this point too, you have to bring a VHS tape in order to record your Ultrasound sessions. However, if you get a 3D Ultrasound, it burns them to cd in mpeg and jpeg formats. It's not worth it though. The thing is, the machine for the traditional ultrasound and the 3D ultrasound seemed to be the same, you would think it would record to the same medium.
I only mod up parents of "mod parent up" posts...
DVDs are great, unless you have kids. My kids have magically found a way to scratch nearly every DVD I have either owned or rented. CDs too.
VHS tapes are cheaper, and don't get scratched. A kid has to get past the back-flap on the VHS to get at the tape, which - while not being Fort Knox by any means - seems to (thusfar) have prevented them from damaging any of my VHS tapes.
The day they invent the scratch-proof DVD is the day I stop buying and renting VHS. Until then, I only rent DVDs when either the VHS is unavailable, or the extra content with the DVD is extremely compelling.
Cool, can you tell me where I can buy one for minidv?
just because somebody out there with a tin desk and a red tie thinks I should replace everything I own with whatever they decided to sell this year... is not a reason to do so.
there are two reasons that we still have vinyl records, analog tape, VHS, boring passenger cars, bicycles, trains, etc. etc. ad nauseum.
first, there is plenty of the old technology around, it still works, and folks still use it and like it.
second, there is not enough money around, folks want to use it in ways that are more important to them than to the fool with a tin desk and a red tie.
not to mention, my LPs sound better off the Linn than my CDs do, and I have absolute right of use within my user license (copyright law) without some little robot determining that I have made six copies of "Don't Worry, Baby" from the same album over the past 35 years, for alternate mode use with no overlap in real time between the different sources, and therefore I can make no more.
the more of that BS they roll out, the higher the prices for analog stuff get on eBay.
-0-
short version: I make the purchasing decisions around my house, not EIA.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
I don't want to "re-buy" all my VHS movies just because of a format change. I already spent money on them once. Unfortunately this is probably a major reason retailers are so eager to drop the older format - people spending money on the same thing twice makes their short term numbers look better. Look at all the whining the RIAA have been doing ever since their numbers came down from artificial highs after the vinyl-to-CD change.
Then there are the older films that would be a hassle to find on DVD, even if I did have money coming out my ears. Which I don't.
You were speaking of VHS-C, one single type of analogue tape format, and hardly the most popular.
I didn't even know they still sold analogue camcorders.
It's the poverty line and the amount of people living under it.
The movies released to DVD also goto VHS. Plus all the tapes being sold for around $1 coupled with the fact that anyone can buy a player for 50 cents from a pawn shop (just ask if they have any to get rid of. When DVD players became affordable to the lower middle class these pawn shops were stuck with thousands of VHS players)
True, with VHS you don't get the special behind-the-scenes videos and the bloopers and such but, for 90% of the movies out there the 'special stuff' isn't really that important
(Sorry if that shocked anyone)
The GEEK shall inherit the earth...
Play XVID, DIVX, DVD, MP3, SVCD, KVCD, etc etc all for $55 at walmart.
Then join groups.yahoo.com dvp642 and download one of the many hacked firmwares.
Region free, no macrovision, skip any previews, change the backround image, etc etc.
None of my 7 year old DVD's have problems. Infact, the bulk of my library of DVD's is over 4 years old, with 30% of it 6-7 years old. No problems to speak of here.
I think you're exaggerating your rot%. I've even got CD's from late 80's (mc hammer) that are in good shape. Unfortunately.
ahem.
I just got a car with a DVD player (the only minivan they had, I didn't really want to spring for it). I stuck in a DVD for my kid to watch on the road. Ten minutes of previews, no fast forward...
Then we stop for gas. Engine off, power off. Engine on - and we're stuck with the SAME previews for 10 minutes - WITH NO FAST FORWARD.
I can't begin to explain how much this pisses me off.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
Coming from the duplication/distribution industry, believe me, VHS is on its way out the door.
The demand has decreased significantly, this was the yellow light for studios, who will now proceed with their "end-game".
Several of the larger studios already have plans laid out to end production of all new VHS within the next year or so (in North America at least). A majority of the smaller studios I've dealt with have already made this switch.
When production stops a studio generally "expires" the title shortly thereafter. This means a small quantity is kept on stock via the vendor and the resulting majority of retail returns are destroyed after a return credit is issued to the retailer.
The strategy is to expire the slowest moving titles in waves leading up to the "A" and "B"(fastest selling/most profitable) movers within a given period of time.
Soon after distribution channels dry, any remaining retail channels will be hard pressed to keep stock on hand and many will return their remaining product to the vendor before it expires and they can get credit for the return. Despite any residual consumer demand the masses have spoken and sunk this titanic.
To drive the point home, the business side of things are drying up now too. Our VHS duplication business (as well as rumors of others)will be winding down shortly and will be channeled to an outside source who will manage the remaining duplication business for North America.
To make a long story short, the profit is not there to continue this legacy.
Read my sandwich board...the end is near!!!
my point was not that VHS will stick around because ultrasound machines use it. :) My point is that there's a lot of infrastructure in place that will take a lot more than Best Buy only selling DVD's for people to want to replace.
/* oops I accidentally made a comment, sorry */