The Arts section of today’s Washington Post includes obituary for the VHS videotape.
VHS — the beloved videotape format that bravely won the war against Betamax and charmed millions of Americans by allowing them to enjoy mindless Hollywood entertainment without leaving their homes — has died at the age of 29. It passed away peacefully after a long illness caused by chronic technological insignificance and a lack of director’s commentary tracks
Not to mention that its bulky, not easy to store, and doesn’t easily allow you to move between scenes the way DVDs do.
And if you have any doubts that VHS is dead, consider this:
The following might be the ultimate proof of VHS’s demise, though: When “Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith” comes to home video on Nov. 1, it will be available only on DVD, marking the first time an installment in the Skywalker saga is not on VHS. As Yoda himself might say, the life of VHS clearly close to ending is.
Indeed.
Its ironic that this story appeared today, because yesterday Kellie and I began a cleaning and organization project that sorely needs to be done around here. In the process, we cleaned out the cabinet under what used to be the main television in the house of the 35-50 VHS tapes that I’ve bought over the years. Its quite a collection from the entire series of Star Trek films to The Godfather and both of its sequels.
There are also a few movies that I saw once in the theaters and then decided for some reason it would be cool to have a copy of them forever. In this category you will find A Bronx Tale, Donnie Brasco, and Scent of A Woman.
Now they are all pretty much useless. The last VCR I owned broke in March and I still haven’t replaced it. At this point, I don’t think that I will.
So what will become of the tapes ? I’ll be calling the local library today and see if they take donations of used videos.
