End of an era as last VCR maker ends production

It’s been almost two decades since the DVD arrived, sparking the long, slow decline of video cassette tapes. But the tape era is about to come to a final close.

The last maker of VHS-compatible video cassette recorders, Japanese manufacturer Funai Electric, says its going to stop producing the devices at the end of the month due to declining sales. Sony said it would cease production of video tapes in its Betamax format last year, 13 years after it stopped making compatible recorders.

The video cassette recorder burst onto the scene in the mid-1970s, sparking a major standards battle between Sony’s higher fidelity Betamax format and the lower quality but cheaper Video Home System, or VHS, format developed by JVC. The war raged for several years, as each side tried to convince consumers and Hollywood to favor its format, but by 1980, VHS had captured 80% of the market. Analysis of the battle, and why Sony lost, formed the basis of innumerable business school articles and remains a frequently cited lesson whenever a market has competing technological standards.

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http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/last-video-cassette-recorder-maker/

Another analog format gone the way of the wire recorder. Are there any analog formats using magnetic tape that are still alive? Or will analog recording be "reduced" to cutting live performances direct to disc? ("Reduced" is in quotes because I don't want to demean their high quality, just that it may be the last analog format left)

Wow though I thought the VCR was gone a decade ago.

Most of what has been available in recent years has been VCR/DVD combos with only line-in recording since the digital conversion. Even though VHS movies have been gone for at least 10 years now there are still a lot of people who use VCRs for home recording purposes. I still did until the last few months when I bought a DVD recorder (Used but still working good. I know even that's getting outdated now.)

joebtsflk1 said:

Another analog format gone the way of the wire recorder. Are there any analog formats using magnetic tape that are still alive? Or will analog recording be "reduced" to cutting live performances direct to disc? ("Reduced" is in quotes because I don't want to demean their high quality, just that it may be the last analog format left)

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Aren't magnetic-tape audio cassettes and related equipment still being made? Or have both been discontinued?

Remember a decade ago right when DVD's overtook VHS for movie sales. There was competition between HD DVD's and Blu Ray. They were fighting for the HDTV Market. But that got killed off as soon as Netflix stopped being a video store and Netflix became a video on demand app, and website. I'm amazed that VCR's somehow managed to survive after all changes that happened in the past decade.

Requiem for the VCR: 197? - 2016

Japan's Funai Electric, the last known manufacturer of VHS machines, has announced it will cease production at the end of this month.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/07/22/technology/vcr-funai-last/

They say the decision is based on declining sales, plus the increasing unavailability of parts.

About a month ago I saw brand new packs of Memorex T-120 tapes at Walmart. Also at Bi-Mart (Maxell 120s and 160s) about 6 months ago.
The end of an era. RIP, Video Cassette Recorder (1977-2016).
As for VHS, it is still being used by a seldom few who don't want to deal with a DVR to record shows, and by the poor, schools, collectors, and even immigrants (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/n...rants-vhs-is-king-for-movie-rentals.html?_r=0).

I still collect VHS rental tapes here and there, but in the last few years I have discovered all of these used home-recorded tapes. Just look at the thread "Oldest Extant VHS/Beta Tape You Have" on the classic TV board. There are many people out there including me who look for those blank tapes with the crudely written labels (and sometimes unlabeled), hoping to find classic TV fun on them. As for me, I've found complete newscasts from as early as 1986, first-run talk and game show episodes, soap operas, episodes of short-lived primetime series, cartoons, and don't forget those COMMERCIALS! I operate a YouTube channel with over 1,200 subscribers as I speak. I have no personal videos on there...just hundreds of hours of commercials, newscasts, local TV samples, etc. Many of these programs will never be seen on TV again, let alone Netflix, so why throw rarities into the landfills?
Disney tapes are getting very collectible with the Gen-X'ers. They can fetch big money nowadays. Same with rare horror movies. Many of those B-movie slashers will never be released on DVD.

crainbebo said:

I still collect VHS rental tapes here and there, but in the last few years I have discovered all of these used home-recorded tapes. Just look at the thread "Oldest Extant VHS/Beta Tape You Have" on the classic TV board. There are many people out there including me who look for those blank tapes with the crudely written labels (and sometimes unlabeled), hoping to find classic TV fun on them. As for me, I've found complete newscasts from as early as 1986, first-run talk and game show episodes, soap operas, episodes of short-lived primetime series, cartoons, and don't forget those COMMERCIALS! I operate a YouTube channel with over 1,200 subscribers as I speak. I have no personal videos on there...just hundreds of hours of commercials, newscasts, local TV samples, etc. Many of these programs will never be seen on TV again, let alone Netflix, so why throw rarities into the landfills?
Disney tapes are getting very collectible with the Gen-X'ers. They can fetch big money nowadays. Same with rare horror movies. Many of those B-movie slashers will never be released on DVD.

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I wish the thrift store near me would still sell VHS video tapes but unfortunately they no longer do due to someone complaining that a video tape that the original owner had marked "Jack Benny" was actually a porno. As a result the store trashed every single one of their video tapes. I can't help but wonder how much classic TV was thrown out. Even though it was only a one time issue according to the manager apparently it was enough to make the change. Kinda like with the little boy in California some years back who had died from a rat bite..a rat the family had purchased from a pet store ( Petco ?? ). Anyway as a result of that one time incident even here in Denver many pet stores no longer sell rats even though nobody here in Denver I know of including the folks who run our local pet shelter can't remember the last time someone had died from a rat. One of my neighbors did almost die from being bitten by a CAT. I guess I better stop now. May give the the city of Denver the idea to ban cats !! I hate stuff like this.

Some people have large collections of movies on VHS. Some of which are out-of-print and currently unavailable
on DVD.

It seems like this is the time to transfer anything you want to keep from VHS to DVD or digital if you haven't done it already. I had done some of that a few years back but the DVD recorder I had at that time stopped working. I'm trying to get started back on that now with another DVD recorder I bought recently (used but working good) and getting a video capture device for my laptop.

And yes audio cassette recorders and tapes are still available. Nothing fancy, but Walmart has them.

DVRs sure are complicated but they're worth it. Season Pass is one of the biggest advantages because you don't have to know when a show is on (though for my newest one, reruns or episodes that were delayed have to be found and recorded manually).

As long as my machines (all TVs with a VCR below, in one unit) worked, portability was an advantage. If one tape filled up I could just buy more, and I could watch on any machine while I recorded on another. I could still use a TV that didn't have a converter box or cable to watch VHS tapes. If the VCR worked. I'm not sure whether it does on the TV I don't use which I assume still works.

My father had a VCR but he moved out in 1999. I bought my first combination TV/VCR in 2000 and don't know how I ever did without it. At the time, I was trying to avoid the complication of hooking it up the way I had to with a DVR, but there was an advantage when I had to get cable for some channels after digital TV took over.

FreddyE1977 said:

Some people have large collections of movies on VHS. Some of which are out-of-print and currently unavailable
on DVD.

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Very true and whatever the movie was on the original VHS tapes odds are it wouldn't be 100% the same on DVDs as it was on VHS or even the earlier DVDs too. Sometimes music rights can be issue ( Paul Newman's Slap Shot is an example of that and of course WKRP ) or something so small only a "geek" would notice. In the Eddie Murphy movie "Imagine That" there is a scene of Murphy driving through downtown Denver only to pass by a billboard advertising KHOW radio. I saw that scene in the theater and on an early DVD. Recently I was told that billboard for KHOW has since been replaced by one for Starbucks coffee.

Sad that someone would tape over classic TV like Jack Benny with those adult shows. Thankfully, I've only discovered inappropriate stuff on two occasions: one had a bikini special from Playboy, and another had a crude '70s porno taped over. Both were immediately thrown in the garbage. I don't watch that stuff.
However, I have found some amazing things on the home recorded tapes. Just a small example:
- Three Press Your Luck episodes from USA Network, of which two have never been reran on GSN. Two Scrabble episodes from USA as well. Four Price is Right's, two 1994 and two 2005, with ads; a Jeopardy! episode from 1994 not in the Jeopardy Archive; and a High Rollers/Wink Martindale episode from 1987...complete with ads!
- Full 5-hour+ broadcast of Seafair Sunday 1988 from KIRO Seattle, the hydroplane races and Blue Angels, all uncut w/ commercials
- 10th Annual Slack Key Festival from Hawaii, off KITV Honolulu
- Many talk shows, including two original Oprah Winfrey's from 1988, a couple of partial Geraldo's, a couple of early Rosie O'Donnell episodes, and a 1992 Maury Povich, long before his "whose the daddy/lie detector" days.
- Several classic soap opera episodes: a Young & The Restless from 1987, three Y&Rs from 1999, one or two from 1994; two Bold & The Beautiful's from 1990; a couple of 2000 General Hospital's, two Days of Our Lives from 1999, and an As the World Turns from 1994. Did I tell you that there's no such thing as SoapNet anymore, and you can't find most classic episodes online?
- Full episode of the Godzilla Sat. morning cartoon taped off WRC/NBC Washington DC in January 1981. This included commercials.
- Many episodes of the short lived "Houston Knights" crime drama, off KPIX/CBS in 1987
- Full pilot episode of the short-lived Fox series "The Dirty Dozen" from 1988
- Too many newscasts and partial newscasts to list! Some from as early as February 1986 (KTRK/KHOU).

Unfortunately, too many of these are thrown into landfills, never to be seen again and buried under hundreds of pounds of garbage. Classic TV needs to be saved!

This is a good opportunity for any skilled VCR Repairman as now VHS aficionados will have little choice but to
have their old units repaired.

FreddyE1977 said:

This is a good opportunity for any skilled VCR Repairman as now VHS aficionados will have little choice but to
have their old units repaired.

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The problem is parts availability. As with most reel to reel recorders now the repairman must manufacture his own parts because even the simplest items are no longer available.

landtuna said:

The problem is parts availability. As with most reel to reel recorders now the repairman must manufacture his own parts because even the simplest items are no longer available.

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No different than old radios with variable capacitors. There are few available now. Amazon still carries 10-365pf caps (I just bought one, and it's very well built), and maybe Antique Electronic Supply in Tempe AZ might still have a few. But for most radios that use different value caps, or multi-gang units, they have to be home-brewed now.

FreddyE1977 said:

This is a good opportunity for any skilled VCR Repairman as now VHS aficionados will have little choice but to
have their old units repaired.

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The last TV I bought (with a VCR in it of course) came from a TV repairman. He had quite a good selection, some with VCRs and some without, and I should have bought more. The VCR broke on the one he had fixed, but it's hooked up to a TiVo since I had an extra one after I had to replace one I was told couldn't be fixed. That one mysteriously fixed itself when Time Warner went digital.

There's a consignment store where he was now and I don't know where he is to get anything fixed or to buy more. But with 3 TiVos I don't need any VCRs fixed.

DavidEduardo said:

Or you buy the same make and model on eBay and cannibalize.

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There is a Reel-to-Reel website online that does a lot of cross-referencing for obsolete parts and pieces but even they are not too busy now. RtR recorders, unfortunately, used a lot of plastic and rubber wheels and thingies that do not age well so even the sites like this one don't help a lot. There is a reference on that site run by a guy who specializes in custom building those rubber pieces but you have to know the original sizes in most cases. I'm in the process of rebuilding my circa 1965 Sony TC-500 now. It was the last RtR tube recorder that Sony produced before going solid state and the one amazing thing I found was that all the original tubes still work within specs. It was the tape transport system that eventually failed. Not too bad for being used in the dry desert all these years.