How long before VHS is no more?

[John Holmes]

I was just thinking now that DVD is recordable and hard-drives have replaced tapes, when will the industry say no more tape....




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Lexman]

Good question John. I think the answer lies in 2 things.

1. DVD RECORDERS sell for less than 100 bucks and players sell for 50 Blanks would be 2 bucks a pop.
2. Tape rentals go away first.
3. Then it's down to a few home use tapes left.
4. At that point, the VCR dies the death of Laserdisc.

That's my take. Time estimate? Not for 5 years.

Lex

[George Bellefontaine]

I think it will be longer than 5 years. Just imagine the size of the VHS library. I still have tapes in my collection( although it is shrinking) that have never been released on laserdisc let alone DVD. There are also all those Joe sixpacks who can't stand widescreen and rent or buy tapes because they only want pan and scan.It is also these very people who could cause problems for we DVD widescreen lovers. Already I have noticed too many DVD titles being available in P&S only.
When DVD first came out, many offered a choice of widescreen and P&S. If the studios went back to that,DVDs would probably then overtake VHS in time,but probably not until the former's library started coming close to VHS. Just my opinion. Lex could be right.
George




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[Andrew Pratt]

I think VHS will evolve into formats that allow it to live for a lot longer then we'd hope. There's already talk about a HD version of VHS that some studio's were looking into (god help us) Besides I havne' tbought a cassette tape for over ten years and seleciton at stores is virtually non existant but you still see tape players in cars.

[Bing Fung]

Well, for my own personal greed, not soon enough!
It's frustrating to see only Box office hits come up for rent on DVD, while the also rans are relegated to VHS only.

I have had to rent on VHS just so I could see the film.




Bing

[John Holmes]

All of you of you bring up strong points. I was figuring around five to six years.

There are alot of film yet to transfer to dvd, like George said. Why it hasn't happened I don't understand. Maybe the average guy thing is stronger than I thought.




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Lexman]

Well, I heard it said just after the release of DVD, that many movies won't be coming to DVD. Why? Authoring cost must be offset by demand. Plus, they can only produce so many a year. So, a niche film with only a small following won't likely see production. Of course, as production costs come down, and the backlog of blockbusters is decreased, we will begin to see more of backwash of minor films hit dvd. I think we are already seeing this concept occur.

Just yesterday I bought "Escape from New York", 1981 Kurt Russell following to Escape from LA. Or was it vice versa? I forget. Anyway, I can see the following of this film being somewhat limited. It's old, and it never was a really hot ticket, just guessing. I figured for 15 bucks, might be fun, so I picked it up. Just after DVD's introduction, experts would have probably said, that film won't go to DVD.

As more and more of this occurs, AND DVD-RW recorders hit market for say 100 bucks (dream on), and blanks are cheap, bye bye VHS.

Ok, so it might not totally go away that fast, but what's critical, is it the medium of choice for rental? That's the determining factor. Not yet, but it's early yet.

Lex

[Greg Stone]

Blockbuster in my area is really pushing DVD. All the commercials on TV and the mail outs are highlighting the DVD selection, etc.

Once they go predominantly DVD, VHS will start a fast descent to extinction.




Greg's DVD's

[Lexman]

True. I am doing a 30 DVDs for 30 days with BB right now, for 20 bucks. Not a bad deal at all. Of course, the negative is they only let you check out 1 per day. They want you to get used to coming in day after day to rent, then they pop you back to retail. Well, that might not work completely, but I admit, the deal did get me back in the store. Of course, BB is conveniently located where I pass every day, so it's not a big deal to go by there, just a little more hassle than I really like.

Lex

[John Holmes]

Well it took damn near three yrs for dvd players to hit the $100 mark. I won't hold my breath for DVD-R to do the same.

I also thought about trying the BB deal. I have yet to go in and read the small print. It is a better deal than Netflix!




"I came here, to chew bubble gum and kickass. And I'm all out of bubble gum!!!" My DVD's

[Kevin P]

Somehow I have a feeling that VHS won't die while George Lucas is still kicking. Why?

Because, if VHS dies, what would he re-release "that" trilogy for the 49th time on? CED?

KJP




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[P-Dub]

Installed base. Millions upon millions of prerecorded vhs, rentals, etc. This will never go away.

Ease of use. Yes, even for those that can't set the time, they can still put the tape in and play.

Recordability. You can't give someone a copy of your Tivo, you need to record that onto tape. DVD recordable is still expensive, and I think will always be expensive. When I give someone a tape, I really don't care if I get it back.

Personally I think VHS will be around for a long time to come, 10 to 20 years.

There might be a hybrid type VCR, wasn't there talk of the D-VHS? Records High Def but backward compatibe to standard VHS.




Paul

There are three kinds of people in this world; those that can count, and those that can't.

[Robbie]

OK, Here's my take...The local Hastings here in Alamogordo is slowly expanding the DVD section and reducing the VHS. Give VHS several years (maybe 5 or so) and the rental stores will convert to DVD. When that happens VHS will have limited appeal and will slowly fade but not entirely dissappear. More and more people are renting DVDs at the store so I can't see VHS staying around to much longer. The price of DVD players will continue to fall increasing the allure to joe six pack. It's just a matter of time.

Robbie