R.I.P: VHS
The LA Times covers the ‘death’ of VHS in this article. Seems like only last week that luminaries like Steven Spielberg were predicting that “home video” would lead to the demise of the movie business:
“It was a sea change,” says Leonard Maltin, the film critic and author who has written stacks of books to meet the consumer need for video recommendations. “Hollywood thought it would hurt movie ticket sales, but it didn’t deter people from going to movies; in fact, it only increased their appetite for entertainment. Hollywood also thought it would just be a rental market, but then when someone had the idea of lowering the prices, the people wanted to own movies. They wanted libraries at home, and suddenly VHS was a huge part of our lives.”
A gazillion videocassettes later, movies are still here — but VHS is not. The article provides a brief history of the phenomenon and — shockingly — reminds us that only three decades ago, there was no such thing like watching a movie in the comfort of your home, on your schedule, fast forward, rewind, etc. It was movies on cable or broadcast TV — and that was it. Now DVD has effectively ‘killed’ VHS as a format. But wait — the article ends with a prediction:
“The DVD will be obsolete in three or four years, no doubt about it. Everything will be Blu-ray,” Kugler said, anticipating the next resident at his pop culture retirement home. “The days of the DVD are numbered. And that is good news for me.”
So a question for you? What do we do with all our old VHS movies? My Disney animation collection alone. Can’t transfer them to DVD because they’re copy-protected; plus the picture would look like crap. Suggestions?