End of an era: the video player

[wishfulthinking]

28 October 2008 14:45 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

JVC has stopped producing VHS video cassette players and will end global sales of such machines when existing inventories run out.

The other major Japanese manufacturers have already stopped producing standalone VHS players, so JVC's exit is said to "bring the curtain down" that era of the VCR market.

Since debuting in 1976, more than 900 million VCRs have been produced worldwide, and JVC has sold more than 50 million of those units.

Stats from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association show that although 6.41 million VCRs were shipped in Japan in 2000, the number had dwindled to 280,000 units by 2007.

I can still remember when I was little we had a combined Beta and VHS machine. Another one bites the dust!

 

[Belegon]

I bought a combo VCR and DVD recorder with the precise idea of transferring my tapes to disc.

Guess that was a good idea.

 

[wishfulthinking]

I bought a combo VCR and DVD recorder with the precise idea of transferring my tapes to disc.

Guess that was a good idea.

Wow. I have a combo dvd player and video recorder, but that was pre-dvd recording.

Do you record tv with the dvd recorder? I thought I heard there was re-writable dvds that you could possibly record over.

 

[kromen]

I gave all my tapes to a friends father who refuses to switch to dvd. I swear that was a tear in his eye. Alas, my father still has a working betamax in the basement. I told him to hold onto it until the Smithsonian calls.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I still own a TON on VHS... and I like them much better than DVDs. I detest DVDs. They scratch so easily, they skip, they refuse to play. And I MISS rewinding and fast forwarding, frankly.

I'm gonna be one of those old ladies who sits in her rocker and tells her grandkids, "These newfangled movie chips that play in your eyes, what is that about!? In MY day..."

 

[TheeGoatPig]

Once I switched to DVDs I knew I couldn't go back. I tried watching a VHS tape a year or so after I made the switch and was disgusted by how horrible it looked. I can't go back.

Of course this also means that I will never see the animated movie Twice Upon a Time again, as it was never released on DVD, and apparently won't be because one of the executive producers hates the movie and has been doing his best to bury it...