The inventor of the VHS format has finally ceased VCR production:

JVC ends VCR production after 32 years (http://broadcastengineering.com/products/jvc-ends-vcr-production-years-1103/)

Gnarly. I'd imagine they would still license the technology to other manufacturers who would want to use it...

I snatched up a few extra Mitsubishi SVHS decks (and did a good clean/lube) so I'm set for the format for many years. I think the 1990 to 1993 models rival JVCs better units which are considered tops.

Every editor should have a couple units on hand that work perfectly.

Darn it! It was JUST about to make the jump to VHS from 2" quad!

Like Jeff, I own a pair of Panasonic S-VHS industrial machines for playback and still have 10 functioning Sony VHS consumer recorders IF I ever need to print to VHS again, although it's been 3 years since I've had to deliver a single VHS tape.

I just got asked yesterday for VHS recording. First time in many years. I have 4 Mitsubishi SVHS units, and Panasonic SVHS unit. I think that should cover me before VHS tape finally goes away.

Darn it! It was JUST about to make the jump to VHS from 2" quad!

Like Jeff, I own a pair of Panasonic S-VHS industrial machines for playback and still have 10 functioning Sony VHS consumer recorders IF I ever need to print to VHS again, although it's been 3 years since I've had to deliver a single VHS tape.


Here's a shot I took of a 2" Quad Machine at KLEW back in June of 1989.

I'm sure it's long gone, but it would be cool to have a working unit just for show...

Bob Diaz

I read a few other articles and it seems they will still make 2-way (VHS-DVD) and 3-way (VHS-DVD-HD) machines for a while, but Im sure that won't last too long.

I still have near new JVC S-VHS and D-VHS machines to hold me for another 10 years.

The D-VHS machine is still a pretty advanced piece of equipment IMO. It just uses the archaic HDV video codec.

Bob, that's AWESOME! Thanks for the nostalgia. Refresh my memory, did you need to burnish 2" tape before you could use it or am I getting my archaic formats confused?

They must not have made many of this final unit. We've been scraping the bottom of the VCR barrel for classroom use for the last year. Can't phase them out completely due to the number of faculty members with large tape libraries from 20 years ago.

Kinda sad really. Not great looking, they were at least pretty reliable - and everywhere.

Sniffle.

john

According to the LA Times VHS is officially dead.

VHS era is winding down - Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-vhs-tapes22-2008dec22,0,5852342.story)

Betamax has company. Long live Betamax.
-C

I love my VCR, had it since the late 90s. Never needed a Tivo or anything.

Betamax has company. Long live Betamax.Betamax actually does continue to live on... in the form of HDCAM and HDCAM SR (same tape width, shell size etc.). In fact, some HDCAM decks will play back Betacam tapes. Betacam never really went away, it just morphed into something newer.

(The same thing was supposed to happen with VHS, remember the D9 / Digital-S format? But it lost out to DigiBeta in the mid-90's and then briefly reappeared as D-VHS, as Jeff notes above).

The specs on D-9/Digital-S were UNREAL at the price point when it came out. I remember agonizing over whether to take a chance on the format back when I was looking at purchasing my first camera. 1/2", 50mbit, 4:2:2 colour in a 1/2" camera with lens for under $7000 if memory serves.

I still produce quite a few VHS tapes. They are often accompanied with a DVD version as well but here are some reasons from clients why they still like the VHS format (given that these clients are over the age of 30).

1. You can cue the tape at a certain point, pop it out, pop it in, push play and you're ready to go. No "crazy" chapter menus.
2. Again, no "crazy" menu to get through just to play the video.
3. Despite having mechanical parts, a VHS seems to hold up better in a client's posession than a DVD. Quite often, the video will be left with no protective casing on a desk or shuffled around. A VHS tape will survive, a DVD will be scratched to death.

I think VHS will still live on with security cameras as well. Many a company still pop in a SLP VHS tape to record 6 hours of security footage on a tape that's been recorded over 100 times. It will be a while before they upgrade to something digital.

(The same thing was supposed to happen with VHS, remember the D9 / Digital-S format? But it lost out to DigiBeta in the mid-90's and then briefly reappeared as D-VHS, as Jeff notes above).
Earlier still, there were attempts by Matshushita to bring to market a professional cassette system based on similar principles to Betacam, but in a VHS cassette, called M-format. Apparently it was truly awful, far worse quality than U-matic, and never really saw the light of commercial day.

Next try was MII, which was more successful commercially, but only ever saw a fraction of the sales of Betacam. All the reports I've ever heard were that it was unreliable, and the stations that did adopt it came to wish they'd gone with Betacam.

Final pro system to use the VHS size cassette was Digital-S, which users generally seemed to be much kinder about than MII. But by this time Betacam SP and Digi-Beta were dominant, and Panasonic had gone on to DVCPro and DVCPro50, so AFAIK only JVC ever produced the format.