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Variety Declares VHS Dead
An anonymous reader writes "Variety has written an obituary for the VHS format only 3 years after it was surpassed in popularity by the DVD." While VHS is hardly the format of choice these days, there are still many, many home movies and other favorite recordings and commercial releases floating around in VHS. How long until VHS players themselves go the way of the 8-track player?
From the /. summary:
Did I miss the memo? Is there some danger around the 8-track and availability. Please... ... ... click
... ..., someone tell me this isn't so! Have I invested all
this money on all these artists and their tapes... ... ...click
for naught? Sigh.
Meh
I'll start listening to Variety about contemporary trends as soon as they drop that inane, out-dated hipster lingo that they use instead of the English language.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
How long until VHS players themselves go the way of the 8-track player?
With the cost of storage plummeting and the rise of digital distribution and on-demand services, the real question should be: "How long until physical distribution of media goes the way of the 8-track player?"
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
How many people have said this now? Its like OK PEOPLE VHS IS DEAD....6 months later...OK PEOPLE NOW ITS REALLY DEAD.....a year later someone ELSE will come out and say it. Its never oficially dead it just more and more gets less used.
The greatest revenge in life is massive success.
...also dead.
Hey!! I get /. on VHS!! No way this format is dead yet.
I used to type the programs out of the little spiral book into my comodore. Then I'd type some command to save, and push record on the tape deck.
Oh yeah,
Load "*",8,1
I never new really what that meant, but i knew the result was I could get a list of all the programs on the disk, and then i could run defender! Or Zork!
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Still around, still useful, just not commonplace.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
Well, as long as I have a huge collection of videos with films and stuff recorded off the TV, and until a usable alternative for recording from the TV that I own and control becomes available, VHS is going to be in my house for quite a bit longer.
I suspect that film studios would like to see the back of VHS and any format that allows easy recording, but it's what people want and why it really accelerated into such a popular format.
I actually suspect VHS won't go the way of the 8-Track. 8-Track has a small cult following that's endeared to it because of it's impractical quirkiness. No fast forward, no rewind. You wanna hear your favorite song again? Wait for it to work its way around.
VHS, on the other hand, didn't have any cute annoyances. It wasn't a great standard, but it had no major drawbacks. And for that reason, I don't expect it's nostalgia to hang on nearly so long.
I only recently (1 year ago) got a DVD. I got a DVD/VHS deck for occasional TV recording and a small back library. Now DVD recorders are reaching the same el-cheapo rate I paid for my dual deck. I suspect DVRs and DVD recorders are really what is driving out VHS, not pressed DVDs themselves.
VHS tapes are much more durable than DVDs. If you want a clear idea of the difference, try borrowing some high-traffic DVDs from the library and viewing those. VHS tapes are also handy when one needs to "tape" something to watch later.
How long until VHS players themselves go the way of the 8-track player?
I'd say probably around the same time Compact Audio Cassette (CAC) disappears from existence. Speaking of, CAC is 43 years old now...
seriously hard to kill the peoples choice
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
You don't need to be Jack Valenti to predict VHS's future. The hand writing is on the wall: VHS faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for VHS because VHS is dying. Things are looking very bad for VHS. As many of us are already aware, VHS continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood at the hand of the Boston Strangler.
VHS is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its market share. The sudden and unpleasant departures from the market of long time videotape manufacturers BASF and TDK only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: VHS is dying.
Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.
Videotape market leader BASF states that there are 7000 video titles released on VHS. How many users of VHS are there? Let's see. The number of VHS versus Betamax results on Google is roughly in ratio of 198 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/198 = 35 Betamax users.
Crap. That sorta puts my parody of this little troll all to hell, doesn't it. Not that it'll stop you from reading this all the way to the end.
But all major surveys show that VHS has steadily declined in market share. VHS is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If VHS is to survive at all it will be among obscure retro video format dabblers, like those weird motherfuckers who play around with CED (Capacitance Electronicc Disc) instead of something that could at least pretend to be sane, like Laserdisc. VHS continues to decay. Nothing short of a cockeyed miracle could save VHS from its fate at this point in time. For all practical purposes, VHS is dead.
Fact: VHS is dying.
VHS won't die until the HTPC appliance fully matures, and a DRM-free medium is adapted en masse, and can record both NTSC and ATSC. DVD recordable is almost there, but is less flexible than an HTPC and won't record high-def, so why bother upgrading? Tivo almost has it, except tivo decides how long you can keep recordings (in some cases at least), NOT you, PLUS it requires a monthly subscription and either a land line or ethernet connection to phone home. Also, Tivo makes it FAR to difficult to record say, Smallville or Desperate Housewives or whatever it is you and your friends all want to watch, then take that recording over to a friend's house or simply lend it out. It's FAR to difficult for the average joe to record a show for you while you're on vacation and then give you the timeshifted content.
I think that VHS will be around until the HTPC is easy to use, DRM-free, HDTV capable, AND the public is made aware of it. Myth is so close, and yet so far, because it is a royal pain in the ass to set up, and the easy-to-configure distribution (Knoppmyth) is fully two generations behind when it comes to chipset and video card support.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
"With the cost of storage plummeting and the rise of digital distribution and on-demand services, the real question should be: "How long until physical distribution of media goes the way of the 8-track player?""
Well DRM is the fly in that ointment.
BTW I'm looking for a decent VCR/DVD recorder that'll copy from one to the other in the $100 range as a gift for someone. Know any good ones?
Some of us still have 8-track minds.
You can get movies that are only available on VHS. Or if you have a security system based on VHS recording and you actually get around to switching everything over to DVR. Or if your VHS player dies and you can not find a replacement.
Life was hell, then I discovered Linux...
I have a whole drawer full of VHS tapes, but they all came from my wife when we got married. I was perfectly happy without a VCR.
We still have a VCR but it doesn't really work. My plan is to take it apart and build a PVR based on a Mini-ITX motherboard inside it, so it will still act like a VCR, only, you know, without the tapes.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.
VH what?
My VCR is my tuner, my PC/PS2/Cable is routed through this box. This box stays for a while, are there any "low cost" DVD recorder/tuner devices out there? :P
I also have tons of VHS movies, am I suppose to just throw all of these away and buy DVDs to replace them? Or what the MPAA doesn't want, use my video capture cards & convert them to DVD myself although this is a time versus boredom issue, one day it may happen.
Some of these dvdrecorders look cool and all but, my VCR cost me $40. It has 1 SVideo input 3 RCA inputs, 2 RF cable inputs, 1 RF cable out, 1 RCA out I have no HiDef equipment sorry
The MPEG on my DVD recorder blows big artifact laden chunks when in 3 or 4 hour recording mode. VHS is better for archiving F1 races, etc.. Except for the slow skip-ahead.
Maybe it is different for Americans, but it really isn't possible (from my point of view) for VHS to go the way of 8-track tapes. To my memory, in my life (and I can remember the '70s) I've seen one 8-track player and zero 8-track tapes. In terms of liveliness, even Beta is a hyperactive ferret on a sugar high* compared to 8-track.
* This metaphor was brought to you by Sluggy Freelance. Remember - a metaphor is a simile that's grown up.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
To have this following so closely on the heels of last weeks "Variety declares that poop comes from butts" ? Variety truly is the son of Man.
DVD will not kill VHS because the analog audio on VHS tapes is far superior to the compressed digital audio on DVD disks.
DVD simply cannot match the quality of audio signal obtained from a tape in good condition played on a quality stereo VCR.
Therefore VHS is not dead, nor will it be until DVD and HD-DVD formats stop compressing audio and using substandard sampling rates and bit depth.
When a standard DVD or HD-DVD release can provide uncompressed (or lossless compressed) 24bit 96KHz audio at a minimum, then perhaps VHS will become obsolete.
Even then, audiophiles will still prefer the quality analog signal from VHS tape. (I have seen people use VHS tape for audio only without video because of the physical layout of data on the tape can provide exceptional signal quality.)
While I would normally agree with you, the linked article is surprisingly free of any such lingo and uses relatively normal English. In short, RTFA :)
Why are we paying credence to the likes of Variety on a geek site? And frankly, who cares what they think?
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
VHS is survived by a child, DVD, and by Tivo, VOD and DirecTV. It was preceded in death by Betamax, Divx, mini-discs and laserdiscs.
Seems pretty lively on the P2P networks...
...these aren't my real teeth.
it wont die for one simple reason. When i leave my house and I want to record a TV show, I pop in a VHS tape. Why? because like most people out there I dont have a DVR or a DVD recorder capable of recording broadcast TV. So the job falls to my trusty old tape, thats been taped over 500 times but still manages the job magnificently. The day I can buy a DVD disk that I can use and re-use to tape bradcast TV on a $40 DVD player, the VHS will die. But that day has not come yet.
Fool me once...shame on you, fool me twice...won't be fooled again (our president)
while vhs is certainly on the decline, many families still have a huge catalog of vhs tapes, and many movies are still not yet available on dvd. no vhs is not the format of choice, it is still reasonably usable, and it offers great ease (not to mention price) when it comes to recording options (kinda like cassette tapes maybe?) sure, someday they will be pretty much out of use, but even now, i know alot of households that have cassette players in their home stereos, my own included. heck one of my friends still makes mix tapes on a regular basis. not until the dvr is commonplace will i see vhs as completely dead. (how else is ma supposed to tape her soaps?)
It'll happen when broadband becomes as ubiquitous and as reliable as electricity. We have a loooong way to go before that happens.
Lets face it, as a commercial medium, sure, VHS is dead. So is Quad, MII, 1" C, and u-matic, but that doesn't mean you can't
find equipment to use the format (well, MII and 2" Quad is kind of hard to find). I don't mind if everyone writes of VHS, just
means more end-of-life tape bargains for me.
Before 1" was dead, a reel of 66minute V1-K tape from Sony was $125. I picked up a sealed CASE of these
for $20+shipping on ebay.
Bring on VHS's death (and the bargains that will follow)
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
The section is called "Home Ent," they mention "vidgame" consoles, and there are 2 instances of "biz." I'd call it normal Englzh.
Has Netcraft confirmed it?
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
Don't you think that you should wait more than 20 minutes before stealing other people's posts (not mine, but one I replied to) for Karma?
8 78422 @ 6:25pm
Reference : http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=207016&cid=16
And shame on you.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
That's okay, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are dead too. Oh, and WoW is lame.
C'mon, kids!!! What'll die next? The Zune? The PS3? The PS2? The PS1? The PS4? The Dreamcast? CompactFlash? The mouse? Vista? Slackware? XP? Caldera? Slashdot? Digg? MSDN? Web 2.0? Web 1.0? Internet2? Token Ring? IPv6? Episodic gaming? Non-episodic gaming? In-game ads? The PowerPC? Cell? Core duo? Core trio? Earth? Caprica? The Death Star? SCO? Novell? Red Hat? Sony? IE? Firefox? IceWeasel? The Pirate Bay? Mmmm. Okay, I'm bored. Continue below if you wish.
perl -e 'foreach(values %SIG){$_="IGNORE";}while(){}'
Comparing VHS and cassettes is a much better analysis. 8 track was never a popular medium for home recording like cassettes and VHS. Even today, a substantial portion of portable radios still come with cassette players. I say that VCRs will last until all forms of physical media are made extinct by on demand services.
What is VHS?
All my porn is on VHS you insensitive clod....
;)
Just kidding, almost half is on DVD now tho not neccessarily the best half
How long until VHS players themselves go the way of the 8-track player?
Until I can buy a DVD-RW recorder or a hard drive recorder for my TV that's under $50. Until then, I'll keep using my VCR to record my favorite shows every week.
You didn't mention BSD you insensitive clod!
...is that I NEVER had a bad rental tape. More than half the DVDs I've rented have had problems of varying impact. If VHS is dying please bring on convenient downloads because I don't think I'll ever rent a DVD again.
The meme police, They live inside of my head
Well now that you can pick up a DVD Recorder (for your living room, not PC) for about $100, there's no point in investing any more in VHS. I recently got a Panasonic recorder that does +/-, DL and DVD-RAM for $199. With DVD-RAM you can even do Tivo-like things like pause live TV and rewind even while it is still recording. You can also go back and set chapter points at the commercial breaks and then delete the commercial chapters.
Strangling doesn't cause much blood flow.
VHS players are still the easiest way to record TV for those who don't own TiVo's (and even in some cases for those who do!) so until digital recording devices become cheaper/more functional (read: less tied up by legislation restricting FFwed) I think VHS will stick around.
They might be right in this case, but come on... Variety is the same publication that thinks Jack Valenti is a cyborg.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
You can still walk into a brick and mortar electronics store and purchase a tape deck or a turntable, because there's just so much media out there for both that were either home made or never reproduced on CD. The same thing is true of VHS video tapes so I suspect decks will linger on for at least another 10 years.
However, in the audio field there's a few perks to analog. You have DJs who want vinyl, collectors who love vinyl as a format, and folks who believe analog tape (usually in the form of reel to reel tape) provides a superior sound. So there's some legitimate reasons to hold onto analog audio, perhaps if for no other reason to take advantage of the analog hole. VHS has no real redeeming qualities. No one is going to argue that VHS has crisper video or 'warmer' video than a digital format: it just sucks. The only use I can see for it is some kind of easy way around upcoming DRM schemes, but even then there's superior ways (recording to digital tape, or some other format for example).
...Digital VHS, JVC's hail to the savior of VHS with the ability to record (at least for now) OTA HDTV? I've seen the recorders at Best Buy (I'm sure they've all gone away by now) but it just never seem to catch on. Maybe it was too early to introduce them, since it was brought out before the days of Blu-Ray and HD-DVD with their expensive players. As I remember, it cost $500 and the tapes were $20 each, which was a bit ridiculous for a tape player. I wonder if they could re-release it now for cheaper.
Betamax has WON!!!
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.
I found VHS superior to DVD when I wanted to show video clips in a class I taught. I can cue up a VHS tape to the exact spot I want, pop it out of my player, pop it into the classroom VCR and it's all set to go. No fiddling around with chapter selections or anything, I just hit Play. I also use a VCR to tape "Good Eats", and the occasional other program, since I don't have Tivo and (for complicated reasons) the DVR is not hooked up to the satellite receiver. Of course, no one will argue that VHS picture or sound quality is superior to DVD. Certainly I never buy movies on VHS. I got me a VCR/DVR combo, so I can copy my VHS collection of anime fansubs onto DVD, but so far I've been unimpressed with the quality of the copies.
As far as I know, Tammy and the T-Rex, starring Denise Richards, is not available on DVD or Betamax. How am I supposed to watch it now?
A lot of friends and family members still use VCR mainly for recording like TV shows because cheap, no DRM, and no friggin subscriptions. Movies are on DVDs. I was going to buy a DVR/PVR a few years ago, but they were still too expensive even without subscriptions. If my VCR (not that old) ever dies, I will probably just get a DVD recorder or something. I only need a recorder. I don't need a TV guide, helper, etc.
I do have a computer with a HDTV tuner PCI card ($40) that works in both in Linux and Windows. Great card and DVB Viewer is OK, but usable. I use it to record HDTV stuff. VCR is my backup in case my computer does something stupid, user error, or I have another TV show to record during the same hours.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
A Nakamichi, Tandberg, or Revox tape deck IMO sounds better than any CD. There is still an active subculture maintaining these cassette decks because they sound so good and they are so simple and reliable to record with. See for example:
http://naks.com/
I imagine the use of video and cassette tapes is still very active outside the U.S., Europe, and Japan.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
TrisexualPuppy has made a habit of stealing other people's posts and posting them as his/her/its own. On at least one occasion, they have taken multiple posts made by other people and tried to combine them in an effort to produce "originality".
Given their disrespect for other people's intellectual property, I suspect they're some sort of RIAA official.
...who still send every promo movie out in VHS, to make ripping/uploading less attractive to the holder. VHS is the format you get when you ring an ad agency, and ask for a copy of a commercial. It's the format of choice for a lot of people who need to be able to quickly, cheaply copy some footage. Sweeping, bold predictions about consumer electronics from people *with* a clue are worthless, so why is anyone listening to Variety?
Tivo content has the ability to be limited beyond your desires.
if I snagged something on vhs five years ago, I still have it.. tivo can set it so you lose something X hours after recording it.. even if you mark it as save until deleted.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
As Variety.... Or haven't they heard that print media is also on the decline.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
And I just finished my home-grown VCR powered by my Commadore-64.
Table-ized A.I.
I just finished throwing the last of my VHS tapes that aren't bagged for giveaway ... if that helps.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
My daughter figured out how to play the VHS tape of her choice when she was about 14 months old. The process was simple - just jam a durable tape into the big slot, and kick back and watch some Baby Einstein. If the tape won't go in, press the little eject button, remove the old tape and try again. Piece of cake!
6 months later, she's still working on DVDs. Getting one out of the package is a challenge in itself, and the discs must be handled gently with clean hands (usually we can manage one of those at a time). She knows which button opens the tray, but she's still working on getting the disc centered in the tray, and right side up. The tray is flimsy, and she's almost ripped it off at least once. Even if she gets a disc into the player, she still has to deal with the DVD menu interface or at least press the play button at the appropriate time. This whole process is far from toddler-friendly, but she is determined to figure it out, and I'm willing to let her keep trying as long as she's supervised.
She's fast though, and last week, before I could stop her, she jammed a DVD into the VCR with great satisfaction after getting frustrated trying to get it to play. For the record, a DVD will fit fully into a VCR, and it took me 10 minutes and a pair of needle nose pliers to get it out.
"Variety is like a high school paper. They pay their writers $28 grand a year to find out something to write about the popular kids."
-Ari Gold (Jeremy Piven), Entourage
need I say more?
No TiVo and no caffeine make me something something...
You paid for the 8-tracks which includes a fair use license for the music. Just rip the music off to Audio Compact Discs or MP3s and destroy the 8-tracks. If you have any questions, just contact the RIAA which will assist you in preserving your rights.
How will I get the movies they don't convert to DVD?
HIX NIX VHS PIX
I find it easier to torrent a television episode that I'm meant to tape for my wife than to set up the VCR to do it for me. Plus, when she gets home from work, that's 15 minutes of ads she doesn't have to forward past.
Haven't taken the DVR plunge yet as there's no "the one" system in Australia and I'm holding back until HDDVDs are available for HTPC purchase. Would use that to record digitally.
ISO certified == THX certified
I'm more excited about miniDV taking a hike in exchange for a hard drive.
Why do I get the impression that camera manufacturers will be charging exorbitant prices for small capacity hard drives?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
I won't believe it until Netcraft confirms it!
Being anonymous is not cowardice.
there are a bunch of people who have whole tapes of home videos, weddings etc that they can't be bothered to move to dvd. for me, I bought a DVD with a HD. I record everything I want, I use editing to take out the commercials. I can set schedules for programs, and then dump them to DVD, take them with me to watch on my laptop, or when we get somewhere. However, the reality is though, its mainly for sports and other live events I want to watch. For TV episodes, its just bit torrent. If you want to live in a commercial world, look at australia. The land where a television showing of the gladiator spans 5 hours to fit in all the commercials, where the last 20 minutes of the movie are stretched over an hour. where an episode of 24 takes 70 minutes, and they still cut bits out, and scrolling ads and text across crucial parts of teh screen.
If any, the VCD died before the VHS in developed nations like American and England that is. In most parts of Asia (less Japan), VCDs are pretty much the rage and the market for DVDs is still small, though that is set to change as DVD players become cheaper. However, as long as VCDs are still being produced and cost less than DVDs, they will not cease to exist as many people just want to watch the movie and are not too concerned about the video quality. This is the case even in Singapore...I should know as I live there.
For me, I'm hanging onto my VHS until I transfer them all to DVD.
and yet you read slashdot
Dude, 8 tracks.
No offense to the late Bill Lear, but how long did he really think that an 'endless' 2 mil sliver of acetate could make that torturous hairpin loop without getting stretched into distortion?
It's '67, and I'm not sure what's scarier - bad Acid or riding in my buddies old chevy with the Association singing 'aaaannnnndddd thhheeeennnn aaaalllloooonnnnggggg coommmmmmessssss Marrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyy'
Guns don't kill people, bullets kill people!
Mostly because it's so gratuitous. Where normal people would use "comedy," they write "laffer," which in addition to not being an actual word, isn't even any shorter! They use the word "actioner," which my brain always interprets as "auctioneer" at first glance. But at least that saves some characters compared to "action movie," so I can sort of vaguely comprehend why someone might mistake it for a good idea.
I once had a bad cassette dirty up my tape heads, and the player wouldn't work for videos until I got it cleaned. More recently, I bought a bunch of cheap VHS movies. When I put one of them in, it again dirtied my heads and now the picture and sound are distorted for all the tapes. I'll need to get a tape cleaner again.
At least scratched DVD's don't cause the player to mess up with your next movie, though I suppose you could have a cracked disk explode or just accumulate dust on the laser lense over time.
Anyone who frequents boot sales in the UK will have noticed that the going price for VHS films is now down to 50p each/3 for £1 or less ... and they'll barely selling at that.
The machines still sell - generally to Nigerians who export them in bulk.
I think that is evidence of terminal decline - the last signs of life will last a little longer.
Water is still wet
The sky is still (more or less) blue.
Jack Thompson is still an asshole.
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
VHS has pronounced "Variety" dead, saying "It takes one to know one."
Variety probably doesn't give a hoot about home recording, really. What I saw them declaring dead was the market for selling VHS releases. Just like you can still get cassette players, but good luck finding new albums on cassette.
The trend reported here isn't the general trend, but the trend from the side of the media providers. That's also why they use the language that the ex-hipsters* that run the business prefer: they're the target readership, not you.
*actually, ex yuppies that like to pretend that they were hipsters instead of greedy suits-in-training, but that's a minor niggle
Variety is a trade publication. It isn't Entertainment Weekly. Of course they are going to use lingo.
This VCR.
Analytic & algebraic topology of locally Euclidean meterization of infinitely differentiable Riemmanian manifold
VHS might not be the best in quality or form factor but when people try to play back home burned DVDs of their treasured recordings in a few years time and find they've gone bad, VHS will suddenly look like a good idea. Factor in that when a DVD goes bad you lose a big chunk if not all of a recording whereas with VHS youmight get dropouts or increased grain.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I work in the control room at a racetrack, where we do filming and broadcasting horse and car races.
In addition to the DVD recorders we've also a bank of VHS VCRs taping raw footage from the cameras. They are primarily for archival purposes and for use in inquiries, but we also sell recordings of the races to the public. Yes, the majority of requests now seem to be more for DVDs, but we still go through boxes of T20 tapes for public consumption. Also judges when asking for tapes of race ask for SVHS, not DVDs (then complain they can't play the SVHS on their VHS-only VCR, but that's another matter).
Considering the head office just sent us a new trio of VCRs for use, I think news of it's demise have been slightly exaggerated. Still a few more years of use left in them yet.
Of amusement, a local television station asks us for tapes as well, but they want Beta which is one format we can't do.
Although in this case they're right. Even 2 years ago VHS was 1% of sales and 2.5% of rents in the UK. The major chains started dropped VHS players that long ago too.
This is not premature, this is overdue.
Has this been confirmed by Netcra.. oh wait..
If you just want to pull small extracts out of movies, VHS is much easier to work with than DVD, where you need to rip whole chapters, then edit them down. (At least with my poor skills -- no doubt other /.ers are more proficient). So I for one have been buying many VHS cassettes recently - and the fact that they're dirt cheap doesn't hurt. But admittedly I wouldn't want to sit down and watch a whole feature on VHS anymore.
If you want to record movies from TV but dont want to get in trouble, VCR is the way to go. It's analog, so no one can say you have an exact digital copy of something... plus, with years and years of grandfathering against those pesky new laws, you have a perfect defense. The VCR performs a useful function at a very good price, which means it will probably never go completely away. If one day FAR in the future, you go to a movie rental place and they have NO vcr tapes, then it is "dead".
stuff |
A few years back I was involved in some tech support for a club night at a local venue that didn't run very frequently and thus didn't have a dedicated staff. They were after a way to play random music videos and other content on a bunch of screens around the venue, and since the venue had a DVD player it was decided that this was the way to go. On the night, the DVD player struggled to read the DVD-R and kept freezing up and needing to be restarted. Consequently we never got more than 45 minutes into the content and kept playing the same stuff over and over -- there were too many other things to do to stand around skipping to the right track.
The next time we did it I suggested that we just use a VHS tape. I hooked my DVD player up to my VCR and recorded all of the content from the DVD to a VHS video. Then I carted my VCR down to the venue on the night and replaced the DVD player with it. It worked like a charm all night, and everyone was too far away from the screens to notice the loss in detail. At one point we had some kind of outage that killed the video (I wasn't around to see what it was) and once power was restored the video just continued playing where it had left off.
I for one enjoy the simplicity of VHS for certain applications. Is there an affordable digital format that has this quality of seamless resuming where it left off?
The hard drive on our DVR started getting too fragmented, so we were having glitches on playback, lots of blocky pixelization and audio drop-outs. The solution, according to user forums, was to reformat the hard drive. We had about 14 hours of programming left on the DVR, so I just used the "Copy to VCR" option and backed it up. Conceivably, if I had a DVD recorder, I could have done the same thing, but putting the VHS machine in SLP mode is far less hassle than burning a disc, waiting for it to finalize, etc.
I seem to remember that QUADraphonic 8-track was obsolete before the warranties ran out on the players, although QUAD 8-track lasted longer than any of the quad vinyl record formats. I built a Heathkit quad integrated amp (it was cheap because it was discontinued), although I never used it with a quad source.
The article stated that as a PRE-RECORDED medium VHS is dead. While specialty videos will be available on VHS for some time, main stream releases from the major studios are now ONLY available on DVD. DVD players could be made a bit more friendly. If the machines were slot loading instead of tray loading they would be more child usuable. If the disks were in caddies (like some kinds of DVD-RAM machines) AND slot loaded the experience would be just like VHS. The problem is that the caddies add to the cost of the media, though they could be an after market add on as the disks ARE removable from the caddies.
DVD-R (includes +R, RW, and RAM) machines need a way to go. My Toshiba dvdr recorder just stopped working with dvd-r disks, though it will still accept dvd-ram and dvd-rw. It always took like a minute to load a disk (WTF!). Guess I'm going to replace it, probably with one of Panasonic's machines that include a hard disk. (best of both worlds).
Interesting to see that straight DVD recorders are now becoming a bit rare, most new machines include a VHS recorder built in! Guess we are expected to back up our VHS tapes to DVD because soon we won't be able to buy replacement VCR's?
Another point, VHS-C camcorders are STILL in production. Blank VHS tapes will probably be available for at least another 5-10 years.
Back when I was in HS (and VCRs were still expensive and worth repairing), I worked in a local TV repair shop (remember those?). We would get the occasional VCR in that had matchbox cars, loose change, or even a PB+J sandwich jammed into the slot. Usually a simple repair, but sometimes kids forcing foreign objects (or even a tape inserted incorrectly with force) into a front-load slot would damage the loading mechanism and cost $$$ to repair.
The older top-loaders were more "kid-proof".
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The VHS train left my station when we went to HD sets, and the 240 line output was pretty much unwatchable. We still have one hooked up to standard set for the remaining tapes, though. Using an HD DVR, where you have the pause function, is the way to go. I don't archive, usually and rarely watch the same movie twice, so this is not an issue for me. I will buy an HD DVR with a HD/Blu DVD burner, though, although our screwed up CE industry won't make one for a while. Along with an inability to agree on a high def format for discs, they are either so afraid or owned by the Studios that they won't allow even minimal time shifting without a controlled PVR, controlled by your cable or sat company. I have a standalone OTA HD DVR, with no fees or rental agreements....it is, of course, out of production, and there are no others in the pipeline. Oh well, I suppose it is not in the cable co's best interest for you to own your own DVR with a cable card stuffed in the back, rather than renting their gadget forever. We live in a world where there should be high def players, and high def pvrs on all the Shortcircutworstbuy big box store shelves next to the big screens. These items don't exist because some big boys don't want them there. Capitalism is not the paradigm for media today....oliglopoly is.
In my town, all the Blockbuster videos went bankrupt, and the nearest independant video store is miles away. So, I have a alternative - popping down the local used CD/music store when I want to "Rent" a video, buy a used VHS tape for $1 (Cheaper then renting when Blockbuster was still around!) and if I don't want to keep it, just toss it out when I'm done watching it. Sure there is Netflix, but sometimes you just don't want to wait a couple days. Oh and recording? Haven't done that in years.
Or are y'all too young to remember that 8-track had no record - which, of course, is why I never bought into it, and stuck with cassettes.
mark
Killing spree! Why HD-DVD and Blu-ray Are DOA http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/ 16/1844235
EMI Exec Says 'The Music CD is Dead'
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/10/27/171122 3
Music Labels Screwed, DRM Is Dead
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/05/08 46213
My floppy drive, my fat-client PC, bloated government, metal CD's and countless other things that those in the "know" have deemed dead.
So Variety is declaring VHS dead after TiVo already held a funeral for the VCR?
I can't wait for their next bit of breaking news. Perhaps it will involve the sales of color TVs surpassing sales of black and white?
Or maybe an item about these new films I hear about, what are they calling them? Talkies?
How long until VHS players themselves go the way of the 8-track player?
So buy a DVD recorder already, sheesh. I admit they aren't super-cheap, but, if you are that worried about all the VCRs in the world suddenly breaking down (and bear in mind that in this day and age it's still technically possible to find the rare Betamax system that still works) it's not such an expensive investment to solve the problem. More importantly, tapes are degradable media. Even just sitting around in the perfect conditions (eg no air, perfectly regulated temperatures, etc) they will slowly degrade. Every time you play them they degrade some tiny amount, so each copy you make is of a lower quality than the previous. On the other hand, while DVDRs (and similar media) degrade over time, copies are 100% provided you didn't wait until after the media started degrading beyond good readability to make the duplicate. So, frankly, if you have VHS videos you care about, you should have been switching to DVD recordings a long time ago.
PS. These days you can find DVD recorders for less than $100 and Taiyo Yuden DVD media (eg high quality discs that will last and stay as readable as long as you can hope) for just under $20 for a 50 pack (counting shipping.) If you have any VHS tapes you really really need to survive, it's not going to get much easier or cheaper to copy them and the longer you wait the more they degrade.
In my house (and I'm not a gadget freak), we got rid of VHS years ago, just to save space. As far as I'm concerned, they've already gone the way of the 8-track. Sure, like others have commented, they were easier for kids to play, but I got tired of my kids ruining the tapes (and the players), so I'm glad to have that additional complexity that comes with DVD. If the toddler can't open the DVD case--fantastic!
The only VHS tape still in the house is my wedding video, and that's just because we don't have a working player to push the content to our PC.
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Will VHS be the last format to die and take its data with it? Digital formats like CD, DVD and WAV/MP3/AAC have physical media formats distinct from their data formats. Lossless copying (of even lossy data) means the data images can live forever, transferred from doomed physical media to new (doomed) physical media. Whether that media is some kind of disk, removable or fixed, or solid state, or eventually holographic, nanotech, psychic friends network, whatever.
Of course, every replacement of copyrighted content you've made has multiplied the revenue of the copyright licenser, and thereby multiplied manifold the profits (10% profit on the first copy, plus maybe 50-90% profit on each subsequent replacement). So copyright holders perpetuate their copyrights beyond any proportion to the necessary protected return on investment "to promote progress in science and the useful arts". Even prohibiting the clearly fair use of moving content you "own" to backup disks. Because they see the privilege of keeping you consuming your favorite content as their god-given right, rooted in a contract they signed with a producer once for a few weeks of work decades ago, while the consumers did most of the work keeping it popular after the initial blast of creation.
The god of dollar, the rights of an artificial government monopoly. Vs a global networked storage daemon. Who survives their armageddon?
--
make install -not war
I have not touch the VHS since I got the PVR a couple of years ago.
My wife quickly filled up the PVR with must keep Oprah episodes and it auotmaticly deletes the old ones to make room for any new we record. Before she keep dozens of tapes around with a single must keep episode somewhere in the middle to the tape. Now it gets delete automaticly and she has not even noticed that those must keep episode where delete years ago.
I doubt it. VHS will never entirely disappear, as other technologies like ADAT make use of SVHS cassettes to be able to record multiple audio tracks, and it is a recording-industry standard.
You're bang-on there... They also have to fall in price. My parents 'program' their VCR all the time, and they bought it for $40 from Future Shop. VCRs have a huge anount of functionality for a very low price.
Amen to that... and it's true, of course. It doesn't take a genius to see. And anyway we all know that VHS recording is being kept alive by the poor. Soon as DVD recorders are fifty bucks, VHS will finally die the final death that it so deserves to die. What a pile of crap VHS is. (It was totally sweet at the time, but these days it's just pathetic. I mean, you can't even pause without damaging your media!)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
VHS is incredibly useful powerful protocol for analog video recording...which is exactly what content providers want to discourage. DVD recording is a digital process that is much more easily controlled by future DRM restrictions. VHS also provides a long-term high-capacity stable magnetic storage format that the DVD optical recording does not. A vhs tape can easily last for 50+ years while the non-pressed dvd optical burn format can be compromised in only a few years by mold and humidity. Historians in 200 years are more likely to be watching old vhs tapes than they are dvd videos.
I teach in a film program and am also the assistant artistic director for a film festival. Our preferred format for most tasks is VHS. Here's why. Of the thousand or so submissions we get to the festival each year, the prescreening copies that come in on DVD have a failure rate of approximately 20%. This is a combination of bad media, damaged media, or incorrectly authored media. Our VHS failure rate is 0%. We have never gotten a bad VHS tape. The only advantage to a DVD is that most computers will recognize NTSC, PAL and SECAM discs while multiformat VHS players are particularly expensive, as are multiformat monitors. On the other hand, getting your PAL or SECAM tape dubbed to NTSC VHS is generally pretty cheap. Since 80% of our submissions are from overseas, this is particularly critical for us.
In the classes that I teach, it is very common to show clips from movies to illustrate a concept or start a discussion. Students are given assignments to compile clips and present them. Having a student load a DVD, wait for the FBI warning, wait for the studio graphics to go by, wait for the menu to load, skip to the nearest chapter point, fast forward to the clip, have the DVD get stuck, etc. is a complete waste of time. Much better for them to take the DVDs to our lab, put it in one of the CSS-removal players and dub it to VHS -- this means we can spend our time in class just looking at the clip (and this academic use is exactly why fair use exemptions are in the law, lawyers). The same is true of cueing a VHS tape. You cue it, and when you take it to class, it's still cued. See above about cueing DVDs.
We are going to continue to use VHS for as long as we can, and don't even get me started about CSS and Macrovision, Feh.
We still have a VCR because my wife records a lot of shows for playback at her convenience. I would gladly buy her a DVR, but i can't find one that doesn't require either (a) a monthly subscription fee for services we don't need, or (b) hook-up to a PC. It seems like a stand-alone digital (hard-drive based) recorder should be simple to implement - why am i not seeing them on the market?
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Yeah, my VCR broke and I tried to buy a new one. I tried Best Buy, Zellers, Future Shop. Each only carried one model, it was all the same model. I had to buy that one, and it saddens me. Its oldschool, it won't record the shows you have scheduled to tape unless you turn the power off and press the "Activate Timer" button. Damn, my parents ancient BETACORD from the 70s works the same way...
ASCII stupid question, get a stupid ANSI
transmissions of network static and frequency shifting wavyness. Hard to explain what a near unwatchable B/W TV was like on a small set with a hanger and tinfoil antenna. (And, by golly, we were glad to have it!)
If it were done when 'tis done, then t'were well it were done quickly... MacBeth
VHS is still superior for amatuer recording and editing of video footage. Just recently I decided I wanted to record some footage from a computer game. To record it directly to a hard drive would take up 1 gigabyte per 10 minutes of footage, and would consume a lot of CPU/hard drive/memory time in the process, while already playing a CPU/hard drive/memory intensive computer game. In addition, when writing it to DVDs, if I didn't like the first edition, thats the end of that DVD. Compared with tape, and a video card with a tv-out component plug however; I just plug in a VCR, play away, and record up to four hours per tape. After playing I use my Ati All-In-Wonder card to bring the better footage back to the computer, while not playing a game and so not using resources; I can then edit it how I want, and re-record over the tape until I achieve perfection; and the final cut goes to a tape that I can take to my buddys house.
That's my county you're talking about, buddy. Kathy Dent, our Supervisor of Elections, has been in denial of the problems with paperless voting.
It doesn't matter to me who wins, as long as we can assure voters that our votes are being counted.
Check it out on newscoast.com, Sarasota's local paper.
That's not trade lingo. No one - not even in Hollywood - talks like they write. Some editor there just thinks it's clever - like a 12-year-old who's learned a new word - and the idiots who read Variety apparently think that their ability to understand the "cool" kids makes them cool.
You can re-record onto VHS multiple times. I can see for movie rentals how this is a moot point, of course, but for home recording, I think lots of people still record a show while they're away on VHS to do time-shifting.
Currently hooked on AMP
Porn embraced DVD because DVDs are cheaper to make than VHS. I noticed my local porn store had mostly dvds way before regular video stores did. Most online actual media porn sellers switched over 5 years ago to mostly DVD.
There are way more porn titles on DVD than VHS, and there have been for many years. Plus, you're wrong about debbie does dallas.
Man, you really need that seminar!
VCR's are doing just fine. I have three of them recording TV shows for me. The only problem is programming them, not getting the programs entered, but figuring out when the shows I want to watch are on. I have 3 of them because these fucking networks tend to run their best shows at the same time. Over the last couple of years the PBS stations got some sense and instead of going to static at night, rerun their shows all night, so I can tape them outside of so-called prime-time.
Tivo-like DVRs are nice in that they do the timing for you, but they are non-portable, not even room to room, unless you like reaching behind things and moving cables. Plus you have to watch the shows rather quickly or they will fill up. When a tape is full you just put a new tape in. If you own a DVR, you can hack it and put the drive into a removable drive tray, but if you rent it from the cable company, try that and see what happens on your next service call. Pigs will fly before the industry makes a DVR you can swap drives with, at least not without some fucking DRM that won't let you play the drive in a friends DVR, or it doesn't expire after a couple of weeks, etc.
The really nice thing about VCRs is they are something I own and I control. At least Tivo can be hacked, the older ones anyway, but these units your get from the cable company are a DRM nightmare. The thin end of the whole trusted computing nightmare. Ever see Clock-Work Orange, watching TV will become like Alex's aversion therapy sessions. You'll pay through the roof for it, can't be mobile with it, and all your files will expire, plus all your viewing habits are grist for the dataminers to mill.
By declaring the death of VCRs corporate media shills are showing how loyal they are to the company. Which wants your freedome to end, so their wallets get fatter.
Well, yes, but audiophiles and videophiles are on crack. For the average consumer, DVD is the better solution in every way that matters.
While I am a bit of a closet audiophile, I suffer from no delusions that the CD and MP3 have killed vinyl as a audio format. Who still uses it? DJ's, audiophiles, and kids that like "antique things". When that's the user base of a product, it is dead in every way that matters.
So is VHS. Let's not be silly about it now.