The end of the VHS era

Ding dong, the VCR is dead

I've never been very good at giving up on old technology. I held on to my audio cassettes well into the compact disc era; my old Handspring Visor is still sitting in my desk drawer; and I admit that I still have an old Sony VCR taking up space underneath my TiVo.

And so I had a slightly nostalgic moment when I read this report from the Los Angeles Times that the last major supplier of VHS tapes has shipped its final truckload of the format. I know the VHS tape has been considered dead for years now, but now it is officially the end of an era. Ryan Kugler, the owner of the warehouse, said that he'll end up just giving away the rest of the unused tapes or dumping them into the trash.

The LA Times article goes on to tell a pretty interesting history of the VHS tape, including what it meant for the home entertainment industry and how it was eventually taken over by DVD some time in the mid-2000s. It's a particularly interesting story now, as it appears even DVDs might go the way of the dodo, what with Blu-ray and online downloads gaining in popularity.

So, does this mean I'll give up my VCR? I don't know. There are a lot of cult movies and independent films that never made the transition to DVD, and many of them are still available in independent video rental stores across the country. That said, the format is fragile, and brick-and-mortar video stores are dying a slow death, so maybe I will give it up some day.

What do you make of the end of the VHS? Do you think DVD and Blu-ray will suffer the same fate? I would also be curious to hear what VHS tapes, if any, you might have lying around. (The only VHS tape I have in the house is a copy of the utterly lame Lord of the Rings cartoon.)

[Scott Gardener]

The Georgio Moroder version of "Metropolis," in which eighties music like Freddie Mercury and Adam Ant is used as the soundtrack--it's still not out on DVD, let alone Blu-Ray. It's only available at exhorbient fees through Amazon's third party rare video vendors. As long as rare classics like these aren't available, I'm keeping my DVD/VCR combo unit so I can copy these out-of-print videos to a living format.

[hblauer]

I still have a bunch of VHS tapes and several VCRs. At one time I even had a Sony Beta VCR. I don't own a stand alone DVD player. Of course, I can play DVDs on my computer. My point: I will not replace my existing VHS movies with DVDs even if available. Too expensive. I will not buy a DVD recorder, again generally too much money. I sure as hell wouldn't buy a Blu-Ray player until they are consistently below $100 for a quality player. And the discs below $10. In my lifetime, probably not. At least not until some other super-duper movie player/recorder comes along. DVRs are nice but what happens when its full!

[Delfairen]

When (before dvd were common place) were pre-recorded VHS tapes below $10? Get with the times.

[Cruton502]

Long live VHS! We still have DVDs and haven't upgraded to bluray yet. In my untrained eye, VHS looks about the same as DVD, so if we have a VHS of a movie we won't get a DVD.

I still have my old handspring visor 2MB in a box under my bed. When I got that little baby I thought handspring was the future! lol, I was sure off.

[Delfairen]

If you can't tell the difference between VHS and DVD then you either have a very old TV or you need your eyes checked. I suggest checking the connection between the dvd and the TV if you're using co-axial or composite (the single yellow lead) then you're missing out on so much and have been for years.

[Dan7637]

look people stop bashing blu-ray, if you cant afford it or simply dont want it fine then thats ok but dont go discouraging others just cause youre cheap

[accheetah76]

Stop bashing people who are cheap. At least they have enough money to be cheap. Example: Guy I know has all the newest gadgets - I Phone, Blue Ray, etc... Can't pay his car note, and barely has a house to put all the cool little crap he spends all of his money on. A VCR was the biggest thing around in the way of at home movies, and there are a lot of videos out there that cant be had on the newest, coolest thing to hit the street - DVD, Blue Ray, You Tube.... I will always have a VCR. It was simple to record on, and just simple to operate (Grandma, and Grandpa even know how to record a show). I am a tech nut from way back, and love new tech when it comes out. But the only way my VCR is going in the garbage is if it breaks, and I WILL find a new one - when that happens one way or the other.

[lgcmjw]

VHS dead? I gave up on recording shows on DVDs. You record on one machine and it won't play back on a different machine. If you get a new DVD player/recorder anything you recorded on the old machine may not play back on the new one. The DVD gets a scratch on it and your recording is history. Progress? I still have my old Beta recorder and when I play a tape that is ten years old it looks as good as the current DVD playback. Too bad Beta lost the battle. DVD is not long for this world. Soon you'll buy SD chips that have a whole season of a TV show or a movie or you will plug the chip into a recorder, really small because it won't have a DVD player, and then plug the chip into your next gen iPod touch or other player and watch it anywhere you want. Put the SD chips in one of those wallets and you can take 10-20 movies or recordings with you. DVDs are not long for this world. I'll be recording my Beta tapes to SD chips this winter.

[ZetaZeta_]

VHS quality has always been very low. I preferred Betamax and I was kind of sad VHS ended up being dominant. It's an inferior format. I guess the main advantage VHS had over Beta was price. Absolute crap is always cheaper than something actually well developed, I guess.

[njjay2008]

My Bar Mitzvah and old High School plays I did are all on a VHS tapes. I'll always have a VCR. Not to mention my wife used to own a video store so we've got hundreds if not thousands of VHS movies to watch (not currently on DVD). Oh yeah...almost forgot my porn collection...Oh wait...that's what the internet is for.

[Bh01]

A very valid point about home movies. I have lots of stuff I recorded of TV and many personal (not porn!) home tapes of family and events. My local theatre groups' entire library of archives are on vhs. Should we convert them to dvd? Perhaps, but do we have the money or time, in my case no. If playback compatibility is an issue then that too is a problem. My two vcrs are both dead so I am in a pickle. Nobody sells straight vcrs anymore, although I did find some refurbs on the web. We tape people are no in the same fix as those who have their family history on 8mm, super 8, or even 16mm.
However the public is not alone here. I recently read that to fully view digital images from the moon at full quality NASA had to get a retired expert to work with them on the only remaining machine capable of playing them back! And of course my analog tv is soon to become useless without help. The march of technology is good overall, but it does come at a price. Maybe Santa will bring me a new deck found sitting in some odd lot store.
Now excuse me, I need to go get an old document off one of my 5.5in floppies. Merry Christmas.

[c|net Reader]

Did you mean 5.25" or 3.5" floppies?

[darkcobra]

All other arguments aside. You served us well for many years.
Goodbye old friend . . .

[newsjeff]

VHS still going strong here ...mixed with our Sony PS3

My family still has 3 VCR's but don't use them very often. We have an older Mistubishi S-VHS machine, an RCA machine , and a new in the box never used Panasonic VCR that we bought 2 years ago to use as back up when one of the other machines break. All 3 are stand alone VCR's. We have more than 100 VHS tapes, both older TV shows and recorded movies, and quite a few pre-recorded movies.

Just this week, we found a battery for a SVHS-C JVC camcorder we were given, and plan on using it soon with some closeout VHS-C tapes we found months ago. After recording on the Camcorder we will dub them onto DVD to play back in our Sony PS-3. Wow, quite an assortment, wouldn't you say?

[Rec4LMS]

We still use VCR's to record television shows. I like the idea of a DVR, but the cable companies in my area have it locked down to where it is difficult to use a third party DVR unless you are subscribing to only the basic channels. Our cable company will "sell" you a DVR, then make you pay a monthly fee to use it. It is too much money put out on something that I would prefer to us on bills. I do not need to go into debt for "stuff" that I can do without.

[c|net Reader]

We have videos of various programming, but mostly use VCRs to record TV. I've considered a DVR, but I don't really want to have to spend hundreds of dollars to build one -- no old, unused computers of sufficient power to handle the load -- and then have to find space for it near the TV. I really thought that no-subscription, turnkey DVRs would be commodities by now, but they're only available through Tivo and cable companies. What to do.

[sekander2]

When I moved to Thailand 2 years ago, I went through hell trying to find a VCR. You'd think this technology would still be prevalent in the 3rd World. Not so fast there, Tonto. I combed the back
alleys of Pattaya and every pawn shop. Guys sitting on the floor in dingy shops with parts laying all over the place....they all laughed at me. Finally found one in a repair shop and it didn't work. I waited 2 months for the guy to get the part and get it working and gladly paid $75 for the Samsung DVD/VCR.
We didn't even have DVR here until last year and they want $450 for one. Thanks, but I'll stick with
good ol' VCR.
Marco Polo (8 hour mini series from 82, Martian Chronicles, No Nukes, etc. etc. The list goes on and
on of stuff not available on DVD. I'll always have this machine.

[GardenLobster]

We refuse to give up on VHS. I'm scrambling to find all of the remaining copies of Veggie Tales, Blue's Clues, and Dora the Explorer that might possibly exist on eBay.

VHS tapes are so much easier for little hands to handle, and hold up better to the rigors of a toddler. My 2 yr old can pick out a tape, put it in the VCR, and watch without assistance. If she wants to watch a Disney Movie, the plastic & foam cases are easily opened with little fingers.

There's no finding the remote to click OK to Play, there's no worry of scratching, and no worry of damaging an expensive piece of equipment. VCR's can be found for a few bucks in pawn shops all over. DVD players, on the other hand, are much more fragile and DVD's in general scratch so easy, are hard to pull out of the case (even for me), take time to load...blah blah blah.

So yeah, there's no chance of VHS dying in my home as long as I have small children.

[billygtexas]

This is somewhat of a misleading story, since its about pre-recorded VHS tapes and not blank tapes. Pre-recorded tapes have been MIA at big stores for almost a decade now. The last time I saw them at Wal-Mart were older movies selling for 5 dollars each.

The Experts said cassette tapes were a thing of the past and Mp3, Ipods and CD-Rs would quickly replace them. Though the big record companies stopped making them, you can still find blank tape and recorders (jamboxes and dictation recorders) being sold at Wal-Mart.

I doubt VHS will be going away anytime soon. There's still too many recorders being used everyday.

[MrMurder]

DVD will start to die out once Blu-ray players become cheaper to make. And the same will happen to Blu-ray once companies find a cheap way to manufacture players for the next generation of optical disc that will support the resolution of Super-HI Vision TVs that'll release in the near future (the sets will have a resolution that sixteen times that of 1920x1080p). But companies might make hybrid players that incorperate the optical disc, Blu-ray, DVD, even VHS, or even Laserdisc!

[zorikh]

I have stack and stacks of VHS tapes or stuff recorded off of TV. Movies, sports, TV shows like Hercules & Xena, Gargoyles, specific episodes of Star Trek TNG, DS9, the Star Trek Marathons from WPIX 10 - 15 years ago, musical performances of my favorite bands, UFC Wired, WWE Smackdown, Highlander, Covington Cross, and more. I figure since I can save about 3 movies on VHS, that saves the space and money of buying it, whether on VHS or DVD. Also, many of the things I taped off TV are not readily avbailable in any format or are unique time capsules of TV history.

Also, some of my tapes have collections of movies or TV shows that are thematically matches,d and I don;t have to keep switching disks, like the day I taped Conan the Barbarian, Conan teh Destroyer, and Red Sonja off of WPIX. And I have made compilation tapes of things like the best cinema swordfights that I put on for background at parties.

I also have stacks and boxes pre-recorded VHS tapes of rare, obscure, and just bad movies that I may want to watch again, but don't want to spend the money for, even if they were available on DVD.

Interestingly, I prefer the VHS version of "Streets of Fire" to the DVD version. The sharp focus and subtle colors of the DVD just rob the movie of its bold, cartoony character that the bold, bleeding colors of the VHS give it.

[TBB2]

Great article and discussion. What is saddest about the end of VHS tapes is the number of movies that have not and likely will never make the transition from VHS to DVD. So many great films that will never be seen again.

You can read more about rare VHS tapes including how to care for your collection at my page, http://www.squidoo.com/rareVHStapes .

Brenda