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Japan Will Make Its Last-Ever VCR This Month (mentalfloss.com)

Posted by msmash on from the good-bye dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Most of us stopped using video cassette recorders a very, very long time ago. By 2008, DVD had officially replaced VHS as the preferred home media format, and the glory days of the 1980s -- when VHS and Betamax battled it out to be the number-one choice for watching and recording movies and television at home -- were very much in the rear-view mirror. So it might surprise you to learn that VCRs are still being manufactured -- at least they were until this month. Funai Electric, the last remaining Japanese company to make the units, has announced that the company will cease production on its VCR units, due to declining sales and difficulty acquiring parts. Their VCRs are made in China and sold in many territories, including North America, under brand names like Sanyo, but last year's figures reported just 750,000 sales worldwide.

8 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. What by sexconker · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Japan Will Make Its Last-Ever VCR This Month"
    "Funai Electric, the last remaining Japanese company to make the units, has announced that the company will cease production on its VCR units, due to declining sales and difficulty acquiring parts."
    "Their VCRs are made in China and sold in many territories, including North America, under brand names like Sanyo, but last year's figures reported just 750,000 sales worldwide."

    So China will make its last VCR under contract for a Japanese rebrander.

  2. VCR didn't compete against DVD by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

    VCRs haven't competed against DVDs for a long time. If you buy a movie, it has come on DVD (or blue-ray) for over a decade.

    The reason people buy VCRs now is to record shows off the TV to watch them later. That's not easy to do on a DVD player. So as DVRs have become more popular, they've replaced the final uses for VCR.

    --
    "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    1. Re:VCR didn't compete against DVD by Dorianny · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Most people myself included, get a new VCR because the old one is acting wonky and they still have a large library of tapes, much of it old home movies that they haven't had the time or inclination to transfer to digital. As the equipment gets harder to find and the film on the tapes degrades, eventually I will have to force myself to tacked the mammoth task of converting it all to digital

    2. Re:VCR didn't compete against DVD by phantomfive · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Get a convertor. Every time you watch a VCR tape, after you are done, set it to convert to DVD (or whatever), and then walk away. Low effort, and the things you watch the most will be converted first.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
    3. Re:VCR didn't compete against DVD by lgw · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd take that bet. The big studios love BluRay, as it's a revenue model they understand and fully control. They aren't exactly fast learners. I heard an MPAA executive shouted "ouch" in a meeting today because he had stubbed his toe over the weekend.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    4. Re:VCR didn't compete against DVD by jeffmflanagan · · Score: 3, Interesting

      We reached that point years ago, and if you have to buy an eBay VCR when yours fails, your conversions will be lower quality than if played on the machine they were recorded on. VHS sucked that way.

      The good news is that Time Base Correctors are inexpensive now, so I was able to fix flagging and color problems caused by playing on a different machine in most cases.

      I had a huge tape collection, 75% of which turned out to be worthless because much better copies of the shows and movies are now available, but I did convert the remaining 25% to MP4 files. A few tapes were completely unplayable because time is very hard on magnetic tape.

      I can't believe anyone would fail to upgrade home movies to a durable format, and just wait for them to degrade into uselessness while planning to convert them someday. That's destroying things via procrastination that should be handed down to your descendants.

  3. kinda sad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    750,000 sales isn't enough to be interesting these days :(

    No one can just make money anymore, you have to make MORE than you made yesterday or you're a failure :/
    (Wonder how that will work out for Nintendo next year...)

    1. Re:kinda sad by Master+Moose · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yes, the number of time I hear about "XXX in trouble as profits down on last year"

      As far as I am aware, profit means you made more than you spent, Being profitable is good. So, while more profit is good, less profit is also good and definitely not "Trouble".

      --
      . . .gone when the morning comes