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Topic: VHS, 30, dies of loneliness
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Tim Reed
Better Projection Pays
Posts: 5246
From: Northampton, PA
Registered: Sep 1999
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posted 11-28-2006 08:17 PM
Another obit we missed:
quote: Variety.com
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.
Date in print: Wed., Nov. 15, 2006, Los Angeles
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Charles Greenlee
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 801
From: Savannah, Ga, U.S.
Registered: Jun 2006
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posted 11-29-2006 12:43 PM
Betamax was a superior way of doing it. It used the same media, so if your Beta tapes wear out, you can disassemble it, and either buy the bulk tape, or steal it from a VHS tape, and install it in the Beta cassette, and you have a new blank Beta tape. If I remember, it used the helical head for both the video and audio, so the tracking is always correct between them. There was something else, like the spiral width or something, that allowed them to record at a higher quality than the VHS's at the time. To bad sony was so boneheaded that it wouldn't come out with a longer lenth tape, that and remaining proprietary didn't help either.
Incidently, stealing the tape from a VHS casette also allows you to put higher grade tape in the Beta, though I haven't tried it myself to see if the picture is better.
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