By Chris Baraniuk, BBC Technology reporter
21 July 2016
The last videocassette recorder (VCR) in Japan will be produced by the end of the month, according to the Nikkei newspaper. Funai Electric has been producing VHS-playing VCRs for 33 years, most recently in China for Sanyo. But last year it sold just 750,000 units, down from a peak of 15 million a year, and has been finding it difficult to source the necessary parts. VCRs were introduced in the 1970s but were superseded by DVD technology. Last year, Sony announced it would stop selling Betamax video cassettes - a rival to the VHS. VCRs were required to play or record such tapes. It was 12 years ago that UK High Street retailer Dixons decided to phase out the sale of VCRs due to the popularity of DVD players.
Some vintage technologies - such as vinyl - have enjoyed a renaissance. However, Tania Loeffler, an analyst at IHS Technology, does not think the same nostalgia will ever be felt for VCR-playable formats. "I don't see VCR becoming like vinyl, where a lot of people appreciated the warmness of how something sounds on vinyl," she told the BBC. "The quality on VHS is not something I think anyone would want to go back to." However, she added that a niche market for accessing VHS content, perhaps for archival purposes, would probably mourn the loss of VCRs if they became unavailable.
[I ditched my VCR ages ago as I was never playing my videos and I was essentially using it as an electronic clock. Over the last 6-8 months I’ve been slowly ditching my tapes which are taking up far too much room that could be used by my DVD collection. It’s all about usage and volume. It’s kind of sad though. I ‘grew up’ with VCR cassettes in the 70’s and 80’s and watched countless classics and honestly terrible films in that format. VCR – RIP!]
3 comments:
A few years ago I literally put all of my VHS tapes into a box and put them in a dumpster. Not even worth the trouble of selling.
I still have cassette tapes from the 1990s, though. I made some pretty good mix tapes staying up all night listening to the radio. :p
Charity shops used to take them but then stopped - swamped and couldn't sell them!
I've still got lots of music cassettes too... They'll be the next thing to get rid of, although they're not so much of a space issue.
I was listening and to an NPR story yesterday about the comeback of audio cassettes. Apparently they're cheaper to manufacture than vinyl, and they are something that can be physically handed out at shows and shared, unlike electronic files. Apparently a growing number of kids today like the retro cassettes. A compnany in Canada has seen their sales skyrocket. As for me, I keep videos around for kids when they come to visit, and I have a VCR/DVD recorder/player combo so I can eventually transfer home movies to an electronic format.
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