Show’s Over: Demise of VCR has one fan clamoring for better options

Kirk Baird

Monday, June 27, 2005 | 8:23 a.m.

R.I.P., VCR.

After nearly three decades as an indispensable piece of home electronics, the video cassette recorder is all but dead, the apparent victim of the digital age.

With the U.S. introduction of the DVD player in 1997, the VCR, which celebrates its 30th birthday this month, has dwindled in popularity.

According to the Digital Entertainment Group (DEG), a trade association for the home-entertainment industry, more than 135 million DVD players have been sold since being introduced to the U.S. market in 1997 making it the most successful launch of a new consumer electronics device in history.

National sales of VCRs, consequently, have slumped, from an all-time high of 23 million in 2000 to 4.9 million units in 2004, according to the Consumer Electronics Association.

The CEA estimates that 90 percent of all U.S. households own a VCR, compared to 80 percent of households with a DVD player. Nevertheless, Target is phasing out sales of VHS tapes by December, and Circuit City and Best Buy are following suit.

"I think tape is already starting to feel like old technology. It seems large, primitive and fragile," Andrew Hain, creator of the VCR museum Web site, Total Rewind, www.totalrewind.com, said via e-mail from his office in Brighton, England. "I can think of only one advantage (to VCRs), now that DVD recorders are becoming more affordable and common and it's fairly trivial: You can remove a tape from the player, then come back to it hours, days, months or even years later and it will still be in the same place.

"Of course, people have existing libraries of tapes, and may be unable/ unwilling to transfer them to disc. This could be considered an 'advantage' of the VCR technology, though it's really just transient inertia."

The fact VCRs have been around for 30 years gives the machines another advantage over their DVD rival: personal connection.

'TiVo-ed'

Like many consumers, I grew up with the video cassette recorder.

In July 1981, I recall my Dad renting a VCR and a couple of movies, "Airplane!" and "Saturn 3," for some friends and I for my 13th birthday.

He even had to put down a hefty deposit of $200 or more for the VCR rental. Less than two years later my Dad and I made a trip to a now-defunct Highlands Superstore in Dallas to buy our first VCR.

It was a silver-and-black General Electric top-loading model, meaning you placed the video tape in a slot that would raise up out of the VCR.

I spent several hours hooking our new VCR up to our cable box and TV and then fine-tuning the recording. To make sure everything was set up properly, I recorded an ABC broadcast of the James Bond film "You Only Live Twice." I didn't care so much about the movie; I just wanted to record something off television.

I actually got up a half-hour earlier for school the next morning and sat through the destruction of the evil S.P.E.C.T.R.E.'s hideout in a dormant volcano by Agent 007, just to make sure the movie recorded properly.

It did, and it was heaven.

Now I could record anything I wanted, I thought. I envisioned a vast library of my favorite movies, TV shows and MTV videos at my disposal.

That dream never materialized, though, as I had a tendency to lose track of the recorded tapes, even if they were properly labeled.

Then on Christmas of last year, that all changed: I received a Toshiba DVD recorder with TiVo from my dad as a present.

My library of recorded shows and movies, which by now consisted of a few well-worn video cassettes -- all unlabeled -- was going to be replaced by the latest, greatest technology on the planet, the DVD, since I could now digitally record anything from TV via TiVo and archive it to disc.

I was joining the "Tivolution."

Or so I thought ...

Two days ago, I shipped back my third DVD recorder to Toshiba; my replacement -- the fourth unit overall -- is on its way.

Four DVD recorders in six months? That's two more than the number of DVD players I've owned in a decade, and one more than the number of VCRs I've owned in 20 years.

Of course, I've talked to several friends and co-workers who own TiVo or other Digital Video Recorders (DVR) brands, and they haven't had any troubles.

Even the Toshiba technicians I've spoken to over the phone seem bewildered by my problems with their product.

"I've never seen anything like it," one tech told me.

Despite my bad experience with the DVD recorder with TiVo, in the short time the units have actually worked, I've grown quite attached to the technology.

Being able to store TV recordings on a hard drive instead of a tape takes up considerably less room in the house. Plus, you never lose track of a TiVo-ed program the way you might when the show is recorded on videotape.

You can also "pause live TV" with TiVo, and can zoom forward or reverse through recordings considerably quicker than you can with videotape.

Is TiVo a godsend? Possibly -- when it works.

Not that regular DVD players and VCRs don't have technological glitches and wear out.

My wife's nearly 10-year-old VCR, our backup for when the DVD recorder with TiVo is out of commission, has many problems as well: Its remote control works only about half the time, and the clock tends to reset itself with incorrect times without warning, making future-date recordings a risk.

We also recently tossed a new VCR given to her as a gift by friends after a video tape became permanently lodged in the recorder.

I didn't bother to have it repaired, though.

As inexpensive as VCRs are now -- the average price is $61, although they can be purchased for even less -- it's much cheaper to replace a VCR than to fix it.

In the late '80s, for instance, Jim Brockett, owner and chief technician of Rocky Top Video, 4300 W. Charleston Blvd., said his shop received hundreds of VCRs each month in need of repair.

Now he gets one or two a day.

Still, those owners would rather spend more money on repairing their old machines than to buy cheaper replacements.

"They don't like complicated menus (on newer machines)," Brockett said. "They want their old machines to work because they know how to work it.

"They're desperate."

And so am I. I desperately want a vast DVD library of my favorite movies and TV shows (I can live without the MTV videos at this point in my life).

I desperately want to pause live TV and answer the phone or the call of nature without missing a moment of my favorite show or sporting event.

I desperately want to embrace the digital age and finally bury my VCR.

If only technology would cooperate.

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