Last manufacturer of VHS stop production – Newspaper La República (Costa Rica)

If your wedding was recorded on a VHS tape, and is gathering dust saved, it was time to digitize and upload it to the cloud. The latest cassette recorders manufacturer will stop production later this month.

Funai Electric Co. of Japan produced the reproducing VCR tapes for more than 30 years and appliances sold in North America and China under the Sanyo brand. But last year it sold only 750,000, according to Nikkei of Japan, and faced increasing difficulties in obtaining parts.

Popularized in the 1970s, the VCR dominated home entertainment to the DVD became the choice of technology in the early 2000s, followed by Blu-Ray and finally streaming video.

Perhaps more surprising that the decision to Funai Electric not to produce more appliances is still were manufactured. Sony Corp. stopped making Betamax video recorders in 2002 and stopped production of the tapes, VHS rivals, earlier this year.

“10 years ago that the market could VCR and be dead, “said Jim Nail, an analyst at Forrester Research. “Following the close of Blockbuster, where else are they going to find these things? It’s amazing. “

Nail said that old habits contributed to the longevity of the device. From family events to classic episodes of Seinfeld, and the existence of an older generation which costs catch up with new technologies, all contributed to a gradual disappearance.

Unlike discs vinyl, which are enjoying a small resurgence, is not likely to have a recurrence of VCR, due to the poor quality of his films.

But that does not mean that some people were not sad to see him go. Many fondly remember the device.

“This hurts my childhood more than any new movie Ghostbusters,” wrote Marty Beckerman on Twitter.

As the DVD player killed the VCR, streaming inevitably cause the disappearance of the DVD. “The day began with Netflix streaming service, the countdown was activated,” Nail said. It will probably take several years.

But if history repeats itself, someone somewhere will continue to manufacture DVD players until long after most people have passed that stage.