Thursday, July 21, 2016

Tempus fu**it!

Production of the last videocassette recorder to be made in Japan will cease by the end of the month. Last year Funai Electric sold just 750,000 units, down from a peak of 15 million a year and has been finding it difficult to source the necessary parts. VCRs were introduced in the 1970s but were superseded by DVD technology.
Some vintage technologies, such as vinyl, have enjoyed a renaissance. However, Tania Loeffler, an analyst at IHS Technology, does not think the same nostalgia will ever be felt for VCR-playable formats."I don't see VCR becoming like vinyl, where a lot of people appreciated the warmness of how something sounds on vinyl," she told the BBC. "The quality on VHS is not something I think anyone would want to go back to."

Perhaps not, but damn it those VHS tapes of mine were inseparable from both my professional and personal life for so very long. Sic transit... and so forth!


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