The last VCR was made in July......

[J.T.B.]

If you remember living in the pre-home video world, you know what a big leap it was, and VHS was by far the biggest factor. Not just watching movies, but time-shifting shows you wanted to see, or recording one channel while you watched another. That was heady stuff! And thank god for it, Youtube is full of VHS recordings of TV shows, musical performances, even commercials that would otherwise be effectively lost. Yes it was a frustrating format at times, but I remember it fondly.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

And today two panasonic recorders landed on my doorstep from a family member moving house.... I'm half tempted to scavenge parts.

 

[Amaris]

I still have my JVC VHS player. It's a 2 Head studio VCR, and it runs like a champ. I don't use it much anymore, as I transferred the family videos to DVD a long time ago, but it's still nice to have around.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Sony Betacams are very heavy..... But nice flip down panel for buttons and stuff and filled with circuit boards in a card cage like the old S100 computers

 

[RandyS]

If you remember living in the pre-home video world, you know what a big leap it was, and VHS was by far the biggest factor. Not just watching movies, but time-shifting shows you wanted to see, or recording one channel while you watched another. That was heady stuff! And thank god for it, Youtube is full of VHS recordings of TV shows, musical performances, even commercials that would otherwise be effectively lost. Yes it was a frustrating format at times, but I remember it fondly.

As do I.

 

[Galactic Alignment]

Recently I ended up spending part of an afternoon watching old continuity announcements and channel idents from long-deceased British TV stations* on YouTube. Couldn't have been preserved without VHS or other domestic videotape formats. Those formats have even helped preserve teletext pages, including the well-loved Digitiser. So while I'm happy to have spent the last sixteen years watching superior disc-based formats, I'm glad that videotape existed and was so ubiquitous.

* TSW, Thames, TVS, HTV etc before they became bland corporate ITV.

 

[Cheapjack1]

Got any screenshots?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Anyone also remember Radofin boxes? They hooked up to a TV and let you do teletext and games and stuff, even BBS

 

[RandyS]

I remember the first show I ever recorded with a VCR: an episode of The Dukes Of Hazzard.

Interesting. So do I. Mine was TOS: "Spectre of the Gun", August 1986.

Do you remember when you taped that Dukes of Hazzard episode?

 

[John Clark]

I couldn't swear as to the date, but I know one of the earliest things I recorded on VCR was V: The Mini Series. (I guess that will have been mid 80s and was on Betamax)

 

[publiusr]

I would like to see all obsolete tech still made but in a shop that has low runs, and offers replacements.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And today two panasonic recorders landed on my doorstep from a family member moving house....

I hope they landed safely.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

I hope they landed safely.

They did and for nostalgia I watched Porky's off an old VHS

 

[J.T.B.]

BTW, the influence lives on. I still hear people saying they "taped" something with a digital recorder, or people on the news saying they will "show the tape" when no tape was involved. It may yet survive in language as a synonym for "recording."

 

[BillJ]

BTW, the influence lives on. I still hear people saying they "taped" something with a digital recorder, or people on the news saying they will "show the tape" when no tape was involved. It may yet survive in language as a synonym for "recording."

My mother-in-law has a DVR and she constantly talks about what she's "taped".

 

[TremblingBluStar]

I'm shocked anyone was still making them.

I don't and won't miss VCRs. Poor video quality, mechanical failures, bulky tapes. They were cheap and ubiquitous--they had that going for them. That was about it.

Yes. Also they were recordable, and while recordable DVDs existed they never caught on like VHS. When the format was introduced, many people still had b&w televisions, and the color TVs that did exist had such poor picture quality that the flaws in VHS were hidden.

BTW, the influence lives on. I still hear people saying they "taped" something with a digital recorder, or people on the news saying they will "show the tape" when no tape was involved. It may yet survive in language as a synonym for "recording."

The term "record" has lingered around as well.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Yes. Also they were recordable, and while recordable DVDs existed they never caught on like VHS. When the format was introduced, many people still had b&w televisions, and the color TVs that did exist had such poor picture quality that the flaws in VHS were hidden.
The term "record" has lingered around as well.

Recordable DVDs for video never caught on because DVRs obviated the need for them. And now, it's more convenient to keep videos on a hard drive or SD card than to burn them to a DVD.

 

[Idran]

Of course your 25 year old VHS player still works. I have one roughly that old that's still in good shape too although these days I don't use it much. Anyhow, there's a reason for the saying "They don't make 'em like they used to".

It;s generally true.

It's more that most technology failure is in the first few years, so after a decade or so all the poorly-made ones have been long-since trashed.

It's like how people marvel at how well-built houses built a century ago were that they're still standing today; it's because you'll never see the ones they made badly a century ago, because they collapsed 90 years ago. You can't really know how well stuff was made before unless you look at the full population, including the sum total of how many overall aren't working anymore today out of how many overall were built. There were tons of cheap VCR players that broke down constantly 25 years ago, and in 25 years people will talk about their DVD player that's still running fine and use it as a reason why they don't make them like they used to.

 

[J.T.B.]

The term "record" has lingered around as well.

True, but that's a little different as it was an existing word for content that came to be applied to the medium, while tape was the other way round.

 

[Ar-Pharazon]

verb or adjective: re·cord \ri-ˈkȯrd\ (see also: tape, burn)
noun: rec·ord \ˈre-kərd (see also: vinyl, wax, platter, LP)

The company stood rooted to the ground in terror. The creature was about fifty feet tall, with wide lapels, long dangling participles, and a pronounced gazetteer.
"Aiyee!" shouted Legolam. "A Thesaurus!"
"Maim!" roared the monster. "Mutilate, mangle, crush. See HARM."