VHS, 30, Dies Of Loneliness

[TJL]

I saw this on Variety.com. Too darn funny.

VHS, 30, dies of loneliness
The home-entertainment format lived a fruitful life
By DIANE GARRETT

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.

[80sTrivia]

Goodbye, VHS... you had a good run...

[AKA]

I'm honestly surprised they were still being made. It's been probably two years since I've seen them in a store.

[Chelsea]

Originally Posted by TJL

Divx

DivX isn't dead...it just moved to Sweden and changed it's name to Hans.

[Lamont]

this must be very sad news to vhs traders

i cant believe it held on to life support for this long

it was good in its day but technology is not kind to outdated styles

[Dude111]

VHS isnt gone...... Those of us that love analogue still love watching our movies in thier original formats

I just watched THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) on the first 1983 Vestron video release and its goregous!!

[Dead2009]

Originally Posted by Dude111

VHS isnt gone...... Those of us that love analogue still love watching our movies in thier original formats

I just watched THE FINAL COUNTDOWN (1980) on the first 1983 Vestron video release and its goregous!!

"Production of VHS tapes effectively ended around 2008, while the last VCR/DVD combo players were manufactured in July 2016 by Funai Electric. Major movie studios stopped releasing new films on VHS in 2006, with the final major release being A History of Violence. The format was largely replaced by DVDs in the early to mid-2000s."

From Google. VHS has been gone for a long time my man.

[Dude111]

Yes I know Dead but thankfully we are keeping them alive!! (Thrift stores,ebay,etc)

[GoldenTV]

Originally Posted by Dude111

Yes I know Dead but thankfully we are keeping them alive!! (Thrift stores,ebay,etc)

Only for those who are satisfy with mediocrity for image quality

[Dude111]

On a CRT they are beautiful Golden (Like watching them on Analogue cable)

Do you still have a CRT buddy?

[GoldenTV]

Originally Posted by Dude111

On a CRT they are beautiful Golden (Like watching them on Analogue cable)

Do you still have a CRT buddy?

I sold my CRT TV 20 years ago. It was a 32 inch Sharp TV

One reason VHS look better on CRT than on a flat Tv is that like VHS, tube TVs also have a limited resolution (low sharpness and picture detail). So you don't see too many video artifacts. But if you hook up a VCR to high definition flat TV, it will look terrible due to low resolution of VHS. The image quality will have alot of video artifacts due to being up-converted from low resolution VHS (240 line of resolution) to to high resolution TV (1080 line of resolution).

One question though. How do you feed the CRT TV from VCR? Is it thru single Coax cable or thru three prong RF cable?

[Dude111]

I have mine with Coax buddy and ya gotta make sure its tight!

Yes I would imagine VHS on a HD set would look not good cause its looking for DIGI input and VHS is analogue...

But analogue looks better... And it sounds better also!!

[GoldenTV]

Originally Posted by Dude111

I have mine with Coax buddy and ya gotta make sure its tight!

If your tv have three prong RF input (yellow, white and red), use that connection instead of cox cable. It will give you better and more colorful picture.

Yes I would imagine VHS on a HD set would look not good cause its looking for DIGI input and VHS is analogue...

That is true since the signal from VHS have to be converted from analog to digital. And on the same note, it is also true that HD tv sets have much higher resolution than tube TV. And since VHS is a low resolution format with only 240 line of resolution, the HD TV have to introduce more video artifacts to fill in its native 1080 line of resolution. Thus VHS video will look much fuzzier on HD set than on Tube TV.