VHS, 30, Dies of Loneliness...

Variety ^ | 11/27/2006 | Diane Garret

[Dallas59]

After a long illness, the groundbreaking home-entertainment format VHS has died of natural causes in the United States. The format was 30 years old.

No services are planned.

The format had been expected to survive until January, but high-def formats and next-generation vidgame consoles hastened its final decline.

"It's pretty much over," concurred Buena Vista Home Entertainment general manager North America Lori MacPherson on Tuesday.

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.

Although it had been ailing, the format's death became official in this, the video biz's all-important fourth quarter. Retailers decided to pull the plug, saying there was no longer shelf space.

As a tribute to the late, great VHS, Toys 'R' Us will continue to carry a few titles like "Barney," and some dollar video chains will still handle cassettes for those who cannot deal with the death of the format.

Born Vertical Helical Scan to parent JVC of Japan, the tape had a difficult childhood as it was forced to compete with Sony's Betamax format.

After its youthful Betamax battles, the longer-playing VHS tapes eventually became the format of choice for millions of consumers. VHS enjoyed a lucrative career, transforming the way people watched movies and changing the economics of the film biz. VHS hit its peak with "The Lion King," which sold more than 30 million vidcassettes Stateside.

The format flourished until DVDs launched in 1997. After a fruitful career, VHS tapes started to retire from center stage in 2003 when DVDs became more popular for the first time.

Since their retirement, VHS tapes have made occasional appearances in children's entertainment and as a format for collectors seeking titles not released on DVD. VHS continued to make as much as $300 million a year until this year, when studios stopped manufacturing the tapes.

[Dallas59]

I'm still buying another VCR and tapes to keep as an instant recorder if something should "happen" in the news...

[RWR8189]

I bought a DVD recorder for $100, its much more user friendly than a VCR and I no longer have a need for one.

[truemiester]

Dang!

They keep this up and the next you'll know is that buggy whips ar being phased out! To that I say "Pashaw!"

[Myrddin]

VHS won the popularity battle over Beta because the porn industry adopted VHS. The various approaches to making purchases online were also pushed to a consensus by online porn sales. Today we have a battle over HD-DVD vs BlueRay for high definition format. There doesn't seem to be a compelling player in the mix to push one format over the other yet. Movies are being issued in standard DVD, HD-DVD and BlueRay. The PS3 adoption of BlueRay might be enough to nudge that format into the lead.

[L.N. Smithee]

I bought a DVD recorder for $100, its much more user friendly than a VCR and I no longer have a need for one.

Quality-wise, the picture can't be beat, but I have had a devil of a time finding DVD-Rs and RWs that play in all the DVD drives I have. Only Sony brand recordables do the job, and they're a heckuva lot more expensive than the shrink-wrapped no-names on a spool.

[RWR8189]

VHS won out over Betamax for me when I found out the tape couldn't hold an entire football game.

[L.N. Smithee]

VHS won the popularity battle over Beta because the porn industry adopted VHS.

I thought the main reason was because you could only record two hours on a Betamax tape, whereas you could record six on VHS. If you were going out for an evening, you couldn't tape a night's worth of primetime on one cassette with Betamax.

[Myrddin]

I purchased a DVR with internal hard disk last year. It can record 28 hours of standard quality video to disk. The timer driven record and ability to use over the air "guides" make it easy to capture programs to disk. It even has a "one touch" feature to do that "instant" capture. You can edit out the commercials and burn the programs to DVD-R or DVD-RW. You can watch directly off the hard disk too. If it doesn't float your boat, it can be deleted with no waste of DVD-R media.

[Sprite518]

When Beta and VHS were competing I always thought Beta had a better picture. Well that is when they were competing.

[DB]

VHS won because Sony owned the rights to Betamax and refused to let others make it without a steep royalty. VHS came out to get around Sony's patents. Several companies adopted VHS and prices fell well below what Sony was able to offered Betamax for and that's all she wrote.

[sgtbono2002]

I dont like the DVD. The problem? It wont let you fast forward through the crap they put at the front of the movie. With VCR you can just fast forward thru all that crap. Also I find that I have more problems with the discs that wont work and the machines go bad too fast. Once in a while an older tape would be eaten but the discs have a lot more problems.

[DB]

Betamax was technically superior.

But it was owned by Sony who didn't want competition.

VHS was created to get around Sony's patents and was inexpensive to license.

VHS won because it was significantly less expensive with several different companies competing for your business.

[ShadowDancer]

Mine lets me skip all the preview junk, just not the FBI warning stuff.

[DB]

Older DVD player - or older DVDs?

[Tall_Texan]

VHS won out over Betamax for me when I found out the tape couldn't hold an entire football game.

The vast majority of my videotape collection are old sporting events which I am slowly converting to DVD. My fear is that the discs will go bad faster than the tapes will.

[ShadowDancer]

Player is only 2 years old. I don't have any problem skipping through the promo crap like the other poster does, just the FBI warnings. Can you skip through those?

[trickyricky]

My fear is that the discs will go bad faster than the tapes will.

I have tapes nearly 30 years old with no apparent degradation, but I have a pile of cds that have gone bad in less than 10 years.
I'll keep my tapes, thanks.

[DB]

I have kid's DVDs that won't let you skip through the ads for other DVDs. Some last 5 to 10 minutes which is very annoying. New movies may be the same way.

[ShadowDancer]

I don't have any of the really small kid DVD's, just the Ice Age type ones and they let me skip through it.

[Centurion2000]

Funny but I just bought a VHS movie last night.