The Last VCR - RIP

[Grumpy Gramps]

The last-ever Japanese VCRs will be made this month

It may surprise you to learn that Japanese companies are still making video cassette recorders, but this fact won't remain useful for too long — manufacturing will cease at the end of the month. Funai Electric, a company that produces its own consumer electronics as well as handling production for other, larger companies, is the only remaining Japanese manufacturer of VCRs, but Nikkei reports it'll close down the lines by August.

The reasons cited are, as you might imagine, the contraction of the market and the difficulty in procuring necessary components. Although other companies like Panasonic got out of the market a while back, Funai had been producing VCRs in China for Sanyo, who sold them in the US and other markets. Funai produced its first VCR in 1983 and sold as many as 15 million a year at one point, but last year managed sales of just 750,000.

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750,000 VCRs last year, that's,,,,,amazing?

[Coligny]

ok... how many of them ended up in your doomsday vault ?

[Grumpy Gramps]

Won't have electricity after doomsday, so we will have to learn to be self-sufficient and DIY our own porn. Down with consumerism!

I did throw away my last VCR one or two years ago and I have cleansed my office from fax-infestation much earlier, so I am totally prepared for the future, including doomsday.

[GomiGirl]

I wonder how many VCR machines are sold each month right now.

[wagyl]

I gave one of my old machines to someone just the other month: I've already digitised my content and there are no new analog broadcasts to record, so it was no use to me, but it shows that there is demand around the place. Maybe not demand that would actually pay for a machine though.

Come to think of it, I also gave the digitising tool to another person, so there are people who still have stuff they want on tape. And if they have that, they need the hardware to read it.

But I, like everyone else, was surprised that there was still production.

[Samurai_Jerk]

I've got a video my friends and I made in high school at my dad's house somewhere. Better dig it up on my next visit and digitize it if it still works.

[legion]

VHS had pretty good audio quality, lots of bandwidth.

Somehow I can't bring myself to throw away some old VHS tapes, even though I have digitized them or can replace the content with a digital version. They sit in the loft gathering dust along with my 25 meters swimming certificate.

[yanpa]

I have a nice boxed set of Monty Python VHS cassettes I keep around as decoration. Probably because I bought them for a relatively handsome price back in the days when the internet burbled lazily down your plain old telephone line.

[legion]

You no longer need to watch Monty Python, just watch British politics instead.

[yanpa]

I hear British politics is being sued by the writers of Yes Minister for copyright infringement.