On Thursday, the last-known existing manufacturer of VCRs, the Funai Corporation of Japan, said it would stop making them due to the "difficulty acquiring parts." Japan's Nikkei reported the news.
"We are the last manufacturer... in all of the world," the company said in a statement, which cited sales of just 750,000 in 2015. That's down by millions from the video cassette player's heyday.
Ben Popken
The electromechanical devices played and recorded video on cassette tapes about the size of a paperback book, revolutionizing the TV, movie, and consumer recording industries during its reign from the 70s to 90s. But the VCR was eventually supplanted by higher image quality DVDs. Those sales are themselves now suffering at the hands of instantly gratifying and cheaper on-demand video streaming.
VCR, R.I.P.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Awwwww....I remember when they first came out. They made so much noise loading and unloading. But it was great because I could record my soap and zip through commercials. Last year the boys went to Camp Invention and needed to take something with them they could take apart and use the parts to "invent" something. I sent them with our VCR which they enjoyed destroying.
I'm amazed they sold 750,000 of them in 2015. Who was still buying VCRs?
I liked the simplicity of them. We had to call a repairman once for ours and he taught me how to clean it and fix it - it was usually very easy. That served me well for years.
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LawyerLady
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.
Uhhhh, I bought one last year. I needed it so that I could transfer home vhs tapes to dvd. DH still has his original beta player and tapes. We really need to transfer the beta tapes to dvd too.
The only one we have came with the van back in 2001 or so.
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