Electrical retail stores in England have added another nail in the coffin that is the VHS videotape after announcing they
will now only sell a limited range of video recorders.
So it seems time we bid farewell to another piece of ‘one-time cutting edge’ technology and let me just say “well done” to the format.
For starters it survived much longer than it should of have done, fighting off various other video formats that were in some cases superior to the VHS.
The first contender was Betamax, VHS’s arch nemesis, a big fight kicked off between the pair in their infant days and although the ‘Max had better quality and durability, the VHS remained triumphant after some serious backing from a large electronics company.
Next came the Laserdisc, kind of a mutant love-child between a Compact Disc and a record vinyl, however this failed miserably too, not surprising considering the size of the things.
Over the years VHS got rich and fat, sitting on its video throne, unchallenged, feeling self confident it could fight off any foe.
Then came the DVD, versatile by name, versatile by nature, this great silver hope took on the VHS head to head and although its success wasn’t immediate, mostly due to the public’s disappointment with past rival formats, the DVD soon became king.
The past few years the cost of both DVD discs and players have dropped drastically and the cross-platform compatibility of the format has made it universal for movies, software and games.
So with the VHS soon to be totally buried it looks like the DVD may have his eye on another rival, the Compact Disc…
Not that the CD will be missed of course!