Standalone VCR party finally ends, JVC shuts the door as it leaves

by Darren Murph posted Oct 27th 2008 at 4:35PM

We were fully prepared to start harshing on VHS as a dead-end technology that never went anywhere during its time in retail (as a joke, of course), and out of nowhere, a bona fide tear slowly ran down our left cheek. Today, friends, is a day worth remembering. Today truly marks the end of an era, as so far as we can tell, JVC really was the only company still producing standalone VCRs. Of course, the outfit will continue to serve customers with a need to play back VHS tapes by offering up DVD / VHS combo units, but those looking for a shiny new slice of retro in 2008 will be out of luck after remaining inventories dry up. All told, over 900 million VCRs were produced worldwide, with 50 million of those boasting a JVC label. We simply couldn't think of a more fitting way to put the iconic VCR (which just turned 30 in 2005) to bed than by hosting up a poll (over on Engadget Classic) and soliciting your input -- here's hoping the videocassette lives on in your domicile in one form or another, even if it's just the resident dust collector.

[Via Impress]

Filed under: Industry, Misc, Other formats, JVC

Tags: dead, JVC, killed, rip, standalone, VCR, VHS, video tape, videocassette, VideoTape

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

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william Buckley @ Oct 27th 2008 4:41PM

Nice collection. I have the same Clash bootleg, and count many of those as faves!

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canadas.finest.bacon @ Oct 27th 2008 10:55PM

I'm glad to see someone else noticed The Clash first. Unfortunately, I only have Rude Boy on DVD, none of these other tapes. :(

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J.Goodwin @ Oct 27th 2008 5:14PM

The real question here is when Funai is going to start churning out VHS/Blu-ray combo units.

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Ken @ Oct 27th 2008 5:45PM

Funny...

Just as VCR's are really at the end of their life - the device that movie and TV executives swore would put them out of business - piracy, new distribution methods, consumer preferences, bad productions, etc. are what is actually putting them at threat. Yet look how much the industry flourished during the VCRs reign, and how much it is getting hammered after its demise.

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squiggleslash @ Oct 28th 2008 1:53PM

I'm pretty sure Hollywood's doing fairly well at the moment, and certainly DVD helped it in the process. VHS has been dead as a movie distribution format for some years now.

They are finding they're screwing up with HD, that's largely because they don't know what they're doing.

Neutral

squiggleslash @ Oct 27th 2008 6:16PM

Do they still make D-VHS recorders? This was the original "consumer HD" format (1080p MPEG2 at 28Mbps, released in 1998 would you believe...) but I've never, ever, come across a player in the wild.

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why not the LS2LS7? @ Oct 27th 2008 9:07PM

I saw one in a store and knew a guy who had one (but I never saw his).

Definitely didn't take off.

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Jerry @ Nov 4th 2008 3:50PM

I'll never forget spending $89 for my very own copy of Back to the Future on VHS. Fair well my friend and thank you.

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Aaron Smith @ Oct 27th 2008 7:03PM

Shoot, after seeing how bad a VHS tape looks on my HDTV, I'd never watch one again. You get used to the quality of DVD after a while, and watching less than DVD is just horrible. The same goes for blu-ray, after watching that for a while I'll never want to go back to DVD.

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Roberto Egretti @ Oct 27th 2008 9:11PM

Ah, "The Harder They Come". One of the classics ;-) Awesome soundtrack, great wardrobing, beautiful location, and a very watchable story.

Memories…

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why not the LS2LS7? @ Oct 27th 2008 9:06PM

And there went the last video device that had no DRM on it.

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Michael @ Oct 28th 2008 6:33AM

Ive always wondored if it was possible to place very simple interactive menus on a VHS tape just like on DVDs.

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Flaco @ Dec 23rd 2008 2:38AM

Unfortunately, VHS (and all tape media) are sequential or linear write devices. They read / write from start to finish, unlike hard drives, which are random access devices (i can access section 1 about as fast as section 65523. If you put the menu at the beginning of the tape, you'll always have to rewind to get back to the menu (painful - we all remember the race car VHS rewinder, right? The one that destroyed your tapes rewinding them at 140mph!!!). DVD's are also somewhat sequential, that's why it takes a second or so to get to the main menu... Hard drive based media (flash media) would be much faster to access, thus providing more bandwidth for HD, audio, etc, and a better media choice for the future.

Anyone remember crystal based media from about a decade ago? 3D media storage? What ever happened to that? I wanna drop a crystal in a slot like Superman and play my vids :o)

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DrXym @ Oct 28th 2008 6:50AM

I got rid of the last of my VHS collection about six months back when moving house. I hadn't watched them in years so I just gave them to charity. There were some pretty decent titles there but I had most of them on DVD and certainly wasn't going to hook up a VCR to watch the remainder.

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Galley @ Oct 28th 2008 9:20AM

Back in the mid-'80s I had a friend who had "Purple Rain" on VHS. He used to get laid because of it. This was when tapes were "priced for rental".

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Carney @ Oct 28th 2008 1:07PM

I just bought a NEW retail JVC D-VHS VCR this year, perhaps the very last one still available (B&H Photo Video's site had just said that it was discontinued, but I called them and they sold me their last one). The box proudly bosted that JVC was "The Inventor of VHS" and advised readers to make sure that their camcorders used VHS-C or SVHS-C tapes so that their home movies could play on their VCRs.

It does an excellent job taping 1080i Dolby 5.1 16x9 HDTV broadcasts in perfect pixel-for-pixel quality. It also does a reasonable job at upconverting standard VHS to near-DVD 480 line level quality, exported via HDMI.

Unfortunately I have yet to get it to do a good job at timer recording.

Neutral

Carney @ Oct 28th 2008 1:09PM

I've got one. See my post below. 1080i, not 1080p. Interestingly, my insurance agent was doing a house call a few months back and did a double-take at our VCR, saying that I'm the only other guy he knows that has a D-VHS VCR. Mine is cooler though, with HDMI out and a built-in TV tuner.

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Carney @ Oct 28th 2008 2:22PM

Stupid Blogsmith comment system. I was replying to squiggleslash.

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Shaking @ Dec 23rd 2008 3:33AM

I disagree. I still make my own standalone VCRs out of old ones. THE DREAM LIVES ON!

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