Now, I have probably 100+ tapes, with movies and home videos, including the birth of my daughter (my husband was in the Navy and missed it) and I don’t want to face the possibility of never watching them again.
Plus, I record shows that I want to watch when I’m not home or can’t stay up to watch them. DVD players don’t record yet, do they?
We have a DVD player in the form of a Sony Playstation 2, but I don’t want to pitch the VCR. Anyone else screaming and digging their heels in at the fast pace of progress?
First off, just because they stop selling pre-recorded video tapes doesn’t mean they’re going to raid your house and remove your VCR. And Blockbuster still rents tape, so people need to buy new VCR’s to view them too. So I think your home videos are safe for now.
It’s ture that DVD players don’t record. That’s why in the future you’ll get a Personal Video Record (PVR), like Tivo. That takes care of recording stuff off of TV. Not archival, true, but better than a VCR 95% of the time. They’ll probably even be built into your cable box directly, and you’ll rent them from the cable company.
The other major use for VHS tapes, camcorders, have already moved on past VHS. It’s hard to find one nowadays that isn’t MiniDV or Super8 or whatever.
Presumably recording of TV shows will be taken over by digital video recorders (FAQ here: http://www.sgsw.com/misc/faq.html), which have a number of advantages over tapes. E.g.:
Random access – you don’t have to rewind or fast forward, groping around for the spot you want
File management – no more “what’s on this tape?” or “Where’d we put the tape with all the “24” episodes on it?”
Always on – You can effectively do your own “instant replays”, or archive moments never to be repeated (bloopers/profane slips/TV news carnage that gets yanked for being in bad taste, etc.)
For home video-type recording, transitionally, people might continue to use video cameras to tape, and simply play those and older tapes onto a digital system for archiving. Ultimately, digital video cameras will replace tape based ones, though this will take some time (digital still cameras are only beginning to displace film-based ones).
As has been pointed out, the Media Police aren’t going to bust down your door and remove your VCR. You are free to enjoy your VHS tapes in peace. There are still people who have Betamaxes stashed away somewhere, I’ll bet.
Of course, once you do buy a DVD player with a decent surround system, you’ll never look back. Tapes have muddy picture with half the resolution and lines per screen of DVDs. DVDs have commentary tracks so you can listen to the filmmakers discuss the movie as you watch it; they have the movie trailers and deleted scenes; and they include “making of” documentaries. They also have scene selection menus so you can jump immediately to a favorite scene without having to rewind or fast forward.
In addition, DVDs have 5.1 surround sound on both Dolby Digital and DTS formats, so you can hear the movie happening all around you. Thec clarity of digital sound is vastly superior to the analog sound of VHS. DVDs don’t have the tape hiss or the crackle of dirt going through the playing heads that you get with VHS.
I had the exact same thought when I read the article in the San Francisco Chronicle about 15 minutes ago. (And this is not the first time that I’ve read an ivylass post and thought, "wow – the two of us are sharing a brain. )
I edit, collect and trade T.V show tapes. I have hundreds. While I’m aware that this is not the primary purpose of video recording devices, it’s the one that’s most important to me, and it seems to be the one that doesn’t have a ready replacement available.
The last time a took my VCR in to be repaired, I found that my much-loved repair shop was going out of business. It seems no one is using them anymore.
Maybe DVD recorders, or very large memory Tivo-type devices, or even some new form of media will eventually work for me, but I’ll always have a soft spot for good old VHS. When I was a small child, I used to dream about owning T.V. shows and being able to watch them over and over again whenever I wanted. Then along came VCR’s, and my dream became a reality. :sniff:
My father and thousands of others have hung onto their record players and LP collections. As long as the equipment works for you, there shouldn’t be any concern of general obsolescence.
Of course, ten years from now you may find it impossible to have your VCR repaired or replaced, making your old tapes extremely expensive to convert into whatever the current format is.
I frankly don’t think DVDs have any real advantage over tapes other than not having to rewind them.
Audio tracks: what a goddamn waste of time. There are probably less than a dozen films that I’d care about how they were made, and the people involved are all dead by now. But I doubt anyone with a brain would give a damn about 90% of the tracks, and I don’t have the time to watch a movie twice just to hear the people involved patting themselves on the back.
Quality: You can see the movie fine. The extra sharpness doesn’t do a thing to improve things, other than letting you gush, “Golly gee whiz, that’s so clear! And its so shiny and bright! It must come from the gods!”
Recording: I record more these days than I rent tapes. DVDs have a long way to go.
Jumping to a scene: Dumb. I watch a movie from start to finish. Why should I want to see any particular scene out of context?
Special features: The trailers are interesting, but other than that, who cares?
And with DVDm, your dream is a reality as well, only with vastly improved picture and sound. Friends, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Simpsons, The Prisoner, and Space: 1999 are just a few of the TV show DVD box sets that are available. As the technology matures, more and more full seasons of TV shows will become available for purchase, and in a couple of years, you’ll be able to burn shows from TV onto your DVD-R drive.
Um, it makes the picture sharper, hello? I have compared movies on VHS that I repurchased on DVD, and there is no comparison. The colors, the clarity, and the detail are so much better than VHS. If you don’t want DVD, fine. But if you can’t see the visual difference between the two media, you need your eyes checked.
Don’t worry. The gradual transition from brown shiny tape to digital visual media will go the same way as every previous transition from one technology to its successor.
You can carry on using your VCR and enjoying your video tapes for as long as you want and as long as they last. But ‘as long as you want’ may not be forever, once you appreciate the benefits of the new medium.
As the video market declines, and the DVD market expands, there will indeed be fewer people supplying tapes or repairing VCR machines. But there will be more people offering the service of transferring the material on your tapes to the new digital medium, and it will become easier and cheaper to do this for yourself at home.
Domestic DVDs that also record are already on sale. At the moment they are hideously expensive, but this will change gradually over time as popular take-up encourages lower prices and vice-versa.
Eventually, one of three things will happen to all your taped material. (1) For the not-so-essential stuff, you’ll keep it on tape, enjoy it while you can, but accept there may come a day far in the future when you can’t view it any more. (2) Pay someone to transfer it to DVD or (3) when the domestic kit is up to the job, transfer it to DVD yourself at home.
It was the same for ‘Super-8’ home movie buffs when video came in and took over. And the same for whatever came before Super-8 when Super-8 came in.
The nice thing about the transfer from analogue media (like video tape) to digital media is that although this transfer itself will incur some marginal loss of picture quality, once the data is in digital format it can then be copied forever with no further loss of quality.
BTW, I know someone who still earns a living as a typewriter repair man!
RealityChuck, I think the fact that Criterion is still in business, and is in fact releasing more movies than ever since they started back in the late 80s with Laserdiscs, demonstrates that there is a not-insignificant group of people that wants exactly the features that you think are so stupid.
And the difference in picture quality is far beyond marginal. I can’t imagine any rational person asserting otherwise. Ever been in a theater that shows a severely underlit projection of a movie? Then seen that same movie properly projected? Well, the difference between DVD and VHS is about double that.
One advantage VCRs have which will help them stay around for a while is that you can take a tape and bring it to some other location for viewing there. AFAIK, TiVO and their ilk don’t support that capability yet.
Oh I dreaded the Day DVDs started to become the new norm. That means folks like Reality Chuck can start changing the content of DVDs through market force. “I hate letterbox because I can’t see all of the pictures!” “Get rid of those dumb comentary tracks! Who needs extra features?”
Damn it DVD was created for people who love film!! It gives them the proper aspect ratio (Hopefully) It gives them insight into the creative process it gives all the little Tidbits we enjoy learning about. DVD was not meant for the average consumer who doesn’t give a rats ass. If this keeps up expect all Discs to be full frame without all those needless features.
Oh I dreaded the Day DVDs started to become the new norm. That means folks like Reality Chuck can start changing the content of DVDs through market force. “I hate letterbox because I can’t see all of the pictures!” “Get rid of those dumb comentary tracks! Who needs extra features?”
Damn it DVD was created for people who love film!! It gives them the proper aspect ratio (Hopefully) It gives them insight into the creative process it gives all the little Tidbits we enjoy learning about. DVD was not meant for the average consumer who doesn’t give a rats ass. If this keeps up expect all Discs to be full frame without all those needless features.
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