# When did companies stop selling movies in VHS form

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-companies-stop-selling-movies-in-vhs-form/586394>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 22, 2011, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-companies-stop-selling-movies-in-vhs-form/586394 "2011-06-22T05:14:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-companies-stop-selling-movies-in-vhs-form/586394/1 "2011-06-22T05:14:18Z")

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I was on [half.com](http://half.com) looking at buying some used star wars movies, and obviously episodes 4-6 are available on VHS but only episodes 1 and 2 (released in 2000 and 2002) are on both VHS and DVD. Episode 3, which was released in 2005 is only on DVD.

I don’t remember exactly when I stopped seeing movies get released in both VHS and DVD format. Did all the studios do it at the same time, or was it a one by one thing? I assume it happened around 2004 or so, but was there an actual date when they just changed over to only doing DVDs and not VHS anymore?

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**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-companies-stop-selling-movies-in-vhs-form/586394/2 "2011-06-22T05:46:52Z")

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Ah ha! This is one of the many useless facts that I have in my head because it seems to come up in pub quizzes fairly frequently. The last major studio movie that was released on VHS was “A History of Violence” which came out in 2005. My recollection is that most of the studios dropped VHS fairly quickly.

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**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2011, 6:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-did-companies-stop-selling-movies-in-vhs-form/586394/3 "2011-06-22T06:01:00Z")

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I’m sure my brother’s kids will think of VHS the way I think of 8-track if the last major release was 2005. That is a shame. We used to make fun of our dad’s 8-track player in the basement.