VHS, 30, Dies of Loneliness...

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.

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.

I'm talking about the days AT&T (Bell Telephone) leased you the phone on the end of their wires. You weren't allowed to hook much of anything to the phone line that AT&T didn't make/authorize. It was essentially a closed system to outsiders.

That's what I was talking about, too. When I wrote about controlling access to a nationwide network, I meant controlling access right down to the jack on the wall. Apple's control over the Mac isn't comparable.

I personally don’t want the VHS to die out.

The only reason why we can’t keep VHS is because we are being FORCED to go to DVD because no one will carry VHS.

Once the DVD’s are scratched or damaged, we have to buy a different one.
If can’t fix the old or if you can see through it. We are stuck buying another one, that is if the other one is still around.

They are not child friendly. Now if they had a hard cover like the floppy computer disks used to be maybe it would not be so bad.

I have boxes and boxes of VHS tapes that are taped. I don’t know if it is just that I don’t want to go to DVD due to the damaged issue or what? Or just the fact that I have to keep buying CD’s or DVD’s when they get damaged, it sucks.
And you can’t find EVERYTHING on DVD as yet!

Now I am trying to find equipment or some way to fix a VHS tapes that didn’t tape right. Not sure if that can be done but I do not like it when I tape and then later find out the VHS tape was bad.
The one I have right now the tape has lines through it. So the picture sucks. You can hear the sound, other than that it would not be bad but not sure if I can fix it or not???
Thankfully most things are going to DVD but you have to guard them like GOLD or you end up paying again.
HELP!

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

I really hate the FBI warning because it is on there too long after reading it millions of times, I think after you suffer through it the first time, you should be able to skip it on your next turn at the same movie. I know it is small, but I always think dang they are in control of us even when watching a movie.

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