Last Major Supplier Calls It Quits For VHS 308
thefickler writes "The last major supplier of VHS videotapes is ditching the format in favor of DVD, effectively killing the format for good. This uncharitable commentator has this to say: 'Will VHS be missed? Not ... with videos being brittle, clunky, and rather user-unfriendly. But they ushered in a new era that was important to get to where we are today. And for that reason, the death of VHS is rather sad. Almost as sad as the people still using it.'" At least my dad's got the blank-tape market cornered.
Security systems (Score:4, Informative)
Don't most store security systems use VHS tapes for their security cameras?
If they switch to non-erasable DVD, there's going to be a metric ton of these that just go to waste every day.
Re:first (Score:2, Informative)
Slashdot isn't that exciting.
Tabbed browsing is! My /. addiction is so strong that I take porn breaks to browse.
Re:Security systems (Score:5, Informative)
Don't most store security systems use VHS tapes for their security cameras?
If they switch to non-erasable DVD, there's going to be a metric ton of these that just go to waste every day.
Nah ... they'll just go on hard disk. They just put in a bunch of security cameras at work (all IP-based) and I'm sure the feeds are going to some hard drive array somewhere.
Re:No players on the market (Score:3, Informative)
Here in the U.S. you can walk into your nearest Best Buy, and they likely have 3 different models on the shelf. Lots and lots of other stores have them as well.
Re:No players on the market (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Security systems (Score:1, Informative)
Re:No players on the market (Score:3, Informative)
Now that no major manufacturer is producing new media,
This is certainly not the case on a global scale.
It seems that the US centric view is striking again as the only news article I could find on VHS production closure was for a Sony plant in France.
Not to mention that the article in question doesn't even mention a manufacturer, it's talking about a distributor.
Re:And I heard... (Score:3, Informative)
...the same supplier is providing video tape transfers to DVD for free.
That way we don't have to buy dvd copies of movies of already paid for.
But the quality -- the quality will sucketh big time.
This isn't about blank VHS media, folks! (Score:5, Informative)
I RTFA (hey, it's Christmas!) and using my advanced English comprehension skills can hereby inform you that it's about what's apparently the last major supplier of content in the VHS format in the USA giving up on VHS. It says nothing about manufacturers of VHS media (aka blank tapes) stopping production.
I bet blank tapes will be available for a good few years yet.
Re:No unskippable ads (Score:3, Informative)
Amen. I just watched a movie on tape that I haven't re-bought on DVD yet. While I was amazed at how bad the picture quality was compared to the DVDs I'm used to now, the one thing that was very nice was being able to just fast-forward through all that bullshit at the beginning that I'm now used to having to sit through.
I used to have a DVD player that let me do what I want... it was GE-branded but my understanding was it had Apex guts. Some Apex players had a 'secret' menu that let you set them to ignore 'no skip' flags and other stuff, and also let you set the player to be whatever region you wanted or shut the region crap off entirely. When this was discovered, Apex players got yanked off store shelves in the US. Do some googling, I'm sure you can still get your hands on one somehow. Mine died about a year ago, and I just bought a run-of-the-mill Sony to replace it.
~Philly
Re:No unskippable ads (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Security systems (Score:3, Informative)
mmm, pretty high actually. Remember that while the resoloution was low by modern standards there was absoloutely no use made of data compression techniques. The composite video signal was more or less (there were some complications due to the recording gaps created by the helical scan system) recorded directly onto the tape.
most home recordable VHS tapes can store either three or four hours of PAL video at thier standard speed (tapes used for prerecorded releases are usually shorter and I have seen five hour tapes availible for sale before), according to wikipedia NTSC vhs tapes use a higher tape speed and therefore store less hours) most later VCRs also support "long play" and "extended play" modes which cram more onto the tape (at the cost of lower quality).
Wikipedia reckons VHS tape has about 3mhz of bandwith (they don't say if that is at PAL or NTSC tape speeds, i'm assuming NTSC since I suspect the wikipedia article was written from american sources) with a SNR of 43db.
If we assume the noise is white guasian noise then per the shannon-hartly theorem.
43db expressed as a power ratio is approximate 20000 the base 2 logarithm of this is approximately 14
per the shannon-hartly theorem (ignoring the +1 since it is negligable) with such a large SNR) this would give a maximum achivable reliable data rate of 14*3=42Mbps
multiply that by 10000 seconds (about 3 hours) and you get a theoretical capacity of about 52GB.
Of course considerations of maintaining reliability with poor quality equipment and the fact that perfect codecs don't exist mean the real capacity given by products that used vhs tape for data storage was much lower. Typically a few gigabyte per tape IIRC.
Re:So which format is next DVD or BlueRay? (Score:5, Informative)
My guess? Blu-Ray, unless Sony allows small producers to reasonably produce BluRay discs [digitalcon...oducer.com].
Re:No players on the market (Score:3, Informative)
Honestly, I haven't seen much of a problem since we started using normal file systems, where the files can be arbitrarily transferred to another file system. Every so often, simply copy it over to a new and bigger medium and you're done. I can still open files from the 80s that way and there's no reason to belive formats will become less persistant. Already there's plenty emulation and with virtualization I see even less reason I should ever have to worry even if I may have to run a C64 emulator inside a Windows VM inside a Linux VM inside whatever OS I'm running in 2050.
But much of that stuff is probably not worth digitizing, and the few things that are are litterally buried in the midst of many, many 6-hour VHS tapes that I would have to spend hundreds of hours looking for. Doesn't seem to really worth the time.
So if you can't be bothered to find them to preserve them (and presumably index a little better), would you ever do it even if they had eternal shelf life? Or is it just some nice-to-have that you think should be left for your decendants and posterity, as if they're going to dig through hundreds of hours of boring stuff looking for the gold? We lose some information, big deal. With all due respect to antrophologists, we don't need 24/7 records of the boring everyday life of everyone. People lost things before in fires and leakages and break-ins and whatnot before too, it's nothing new.
With time people will learn to take care of their digital valuables too. Honestly, buy a USB stick and copy gigs and gigs of data on it and carry it with you. Give one to your family or your friends, password-encrypted if you prefer. You don't need expensive equipment, nor bank vaults, nor much time to copy-paste. Just to be a little less lazy and most people wouldn't lose anything at all. I just saw recently how much some photographs that were made 25 years ago had faded. Scanning and photoshopping them now is the only hope to preserve those for another 25. With a little care they'll be bit exact the same in 100 years.
Re:THINKGEEK has converters (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No players on the market (Score:5, Informative)
I have an old, high end mitsubishi VHS I need to get fixed (tape transport mech)
From "tape transport mech" I'm going to assume you're saying that the tape doesn't go all the way into the unit when you insert it? If this is the case it is often caused by one of the belts that drive the gears, that operate the transport system, being worn so it's not gripping tightly.
This happened to me on my VCR a while back, and still did until my niece decided to spill juice in it. ;-)
If you haven't done it yet, take the cover off, plug it back in, and then insert a tape you don't care about. Watch how the gears, levers, and belts move. One of them will look like it's slipping. Probably the one that drives the equipment that pulls the tape in, lowering the cage. If the tape gets stuck, pulling the plug and then plugging it back in will usually cause the sensor to read a tape halfway in and eject it.
Try it a few more times until you can spot what is loose or stuck. Once you spot the location, if it's easily reached, put the tape in and then at the same time use your finger to turn the cylinder / gear / gizmo that the belt is trying to turn. This extra push from you *should* be enough to finish lowering the cage. Obviously if you electrocute yourself, or mangle your finger, or cause any other unforeseen damage to yourself / VCR, I'm not responsible. Use your common judgment and determine for yourself if it's safe.
I was able to use my old VCR for an extra 4 years, until the aforementioned niece decided it would be fun to spill a drink in there. ;-)
Of course, if this doesn't work it probably won't be fixable with the "turning gizmo with finger" method. In this case you'll want to look for a local "mom and pop" electronics store that does home electronics repairs. Or you could just look online for another high-end VCR, I do believe they still make them, although I haven't looked.
Re:No players on the market (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously if you electrocute yourself, or mangle your finger, or cause any other unforeseen damage to yourself / VCR, I'm not responsible.
Be aware that the psu is inside the VCR(well end stuff it is anyway) so there will be some transformers with high current/voltage lying about in there.
Re:No players on the market (Score:1, Informative)
There are torrents available online (at least of WKRP) from people who have already done this. I found very good quality copies at tvtorrents.com with the original music intact.
Generous thought, but not CRT TVs to Africa... (Score:2, Informative)
Define 'affordable' (Score:3, Informative)
A very cursory search shows me players starting at around $115. Define 'affordable'? They've come down a HUGE amount in price already.
Re:No players on the market (Score:3, Informative)
No, it isn't, as long as you return the DVD. It's copyright infringement; neither more nor less.
It was also clear that we were talking about the practical aspects of the procedure.