Everything you've said about VHS is dead wrong. It is not viable, it is not supported and media for it hasn't been produced for the last 5 years.
Well,
all visual media that you can watch on your telly is automatically compatible with VHS, as the analog recording system can hijack any signal at the point where it's going to the screen, record it, and then play it again at that point, regardless of the nature of the signal (analog, digital, PAL, NTSC, HD-DVD, digibox brand X or Y, format A or B, whatever).
And since its mechanical complexities are, well, mechanical, it's incredibly fault-tolerant: most problems can be fixed with a screwdriver or a piece of adhesive tape. And no such thing as a software problem can ever exist in a VHS system.
The viability problems are twofold: copies of copies of copies aren't as good as originals, and accessing a specific timepoint requires waiting and physical strain on the recording medium. But many of the modern media don't allow for copies of copies of copies to begin with. And I can live with spending a few minutes rewinding.
One might see it as a problem that nothing is sold prepacked on VHS. But that's a problem only for a certain slice of the clientele. For others, it's a far greater problem that the material that is
broadcast cannot be digitally recorded, except on a device that does not allow for transferring forward, or for longtime storage - unless provided with extra gadgets that may quite literally cost ten times more than a comparable VHS system and library.
VHS remains quite practical for recording broadcast material for long term, even though a digital hard drive recorder is a practical and cost-efficient short term recording and playback system. A separate instrument is needed for playing purchased material anyway - again unless significant extra dough is coughed up to obtain a multifunctional system.
To suggest that "'high definition' offers little improvement in practice, as one would have to purchase an unnecessarily complex and expensive display to enjoy the improvement," is disengenuous at best an at worst just ridiculous.
Not really. A good old 50/100 Hz analog set still sells well, again for being just one tenth the price of a system that would do any sort of justice to "high definition". And about 70-80% of sets here are expected to be of that type in 2015 still, at which point the existing stock will wear out - and I'll be ready to swap media.
As far as complexity is concerned, this is the most ignorant assertion of all. One cable... that's it. One cable goes into one end of your media device (DVD player, Video game system, cable box, etc.) and the other goes into your TV (or if you want to get fancy into your receiver andthen into your TV). It's far less complex than the analog options of the past.
Doesn't work that way. It has to be one cable that goes into your
cluster of media devices, which in turn are connected by a spaghetti of cables. The old analog VCR setup involved antenna-cable-VCR-cable-TV. Modified for digital broadcast, it would become antenna-cable-digibox-cable-VCR-cable-TV (with SCART or similar replacing the original coax where needed).
But for digital recording and playback media, you have to replace the digibox-cable-VHS part of the above system with a combination of (recording) digibox plus separate DVD player or other transferrable media player, which are then cross-connected for plug-and-pray, with all sorts of software compatibility problems looming. The spaghetti itself isn't all that difficult to set up, but not really less difficult than the old coax lines, either. Getting the multicomponent system to coexist peacefully in cyberspace is another ballgame altogether.
When something even roughly comparable to analog VCR and analog TV comes to market in one package (preferably with just one remote) at a price that is even roughly comparable, then we can say we've made a transition. But that would mean integrating the transferrable media player into the whole - and how to do that, when transferrable media standards change every two-three years?
Better to just hook everything up to your computer and purchase suitable software for playing and recording each new format as it emerges and shoves the predecessor out. But then it again becomes an issue of finding a long term storage medium. The VHS library will still be go fifty years from now, as will their player. Any recording made on CD-like optical storage, flash or classic hard drive will be long gone by then, either corrupted or then rendered unreadable by anything except those antique machines they collect at the Library of Congress just in case.
And of course, celluloid film will outlive even magnetic tape... And wood carvings outlive celluloid. It's a compromise between recording density and durability. Too bad that most of today's media settle for practical durability of two years. (Good enough for ENT, perhaps, but I want to enjoy my TOS a bit longer than that!)
Timo Saloniemi
I still remember 50 inch T.Vs from the 80s that cost anywhere between $2000.00 to $5000.00. and they suck compared to my Samsung HD TV which is only 32 inches and cost me less than $1000.00.
