The End Of An Era – JVC Stops Standalone VCR Production

MegaZone — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 01:01:56 +0000

JVC, one of the creators of the VHS format and one of the earliest producers of VCRs, has announced they will cease production of standalone VCRs. Sales will end when existing stocks are depleted. However, they will continue to manufacture VHS/DVD combo units for those still clinging to their video tapes. (I personally own hundreds of VHS tapes, but I haven’t actually used one in ages. Just last night I found a stash of unused blank tapes still in shrink wrap, must be from before I got TiVo in 2002.) Since 1976 more than 900 million VCRs have been produced worldwide, and 50 million of those by JVC.

Via Engadget.

Strange Bedfellows

MegaZone — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:32:09 +0000

Panasonic has announced a new uber-box for the Japanese market. It is a combination 320GB DVR and Blu-ray & DVD recorder. But that’s not all, it also has a built in VHS deck. So you can dump your fuzzy VHS tapes to DVD, or Blu-ray to really capture the fuzziness in high quality. It isn’t completely clear from the translated AV Watch Japanese text, but it sounds like you can also record to VHS – though not from the tuner. You can also dump content to the hard drive, and then transfer from the drive to media. All this can be yours October 1st for the equivalent of $1,450 – only in Japan of course.

We need an HD DVD and Betamax combo deck just for the Epic Fail factor that would represent. (This system supports Digital Audio Tape, Digital Compact Cassette, and MiniDisc – it can’t fail!)

Picked up via Gizmodo.

Gizmo Lovers Blog » VHS

The End Of An Era – JVC Stops Standalone VCR Production

Strange Bedfellows