Kerblam! by Christopher

Saturday, November 18
VHS Is Dead, Long Live VHS

Ladies, gents and crossgenders, doff your caps for the timely passing of a modern-day legend: the humble VHS cassette. And so it came to pass that on the 16th of November, 2006, the VHS was officially declared dead:

“It’s pretty much over,” concurred Buena Vista Home Entertainment general manager North America Lori MacPherson on Tuesday.

VHS, we had some good times, some bad times (favourite tapes getting mangled up inside the machine, and Dad having to CUT THEM OUT WITH SCISSORS NOOOOO), and some great times (Fireman Sam and Thomas The Tank Engine on near-constant repeat during my younger years), but unfortunately all good things must come to pass, and well, I've not bought a VHS cassette, blank or otherwise, for at least 2 years now.

Actually, it might be three years.

So, sayonara VHS. JVC made an absolute FORTUNE from licensing your technology rights to other manufacturers, and I don't think you had a bad run. However, all is not lost - we get to enjoy the VHS/Betamax war all over again now. I have a bet on with my housemate that by 2008, HD-DVD will be the dominant format, and Blu-Ray will be either obsolete or the least-favoured format, but that remains to be seen.

It's going to be fun though, we won't forget you.

Read more: //dlisted.com/2006/11/16/rip-vhs/

Also, don't discount HVD, being developed by Fuji, the next next-gem storage format which could, provided it receives enough studio backing (THE crucial factor) win the contest on its own... Technologically, it has astounding capabilities, even compared to BD or HD-DVD, but it's allll about how willing the studios and big businesses are to reinvest once again in a new format having already spent millions (and committed, in some cases) to one particular format.

Sadly, I see it only becoming popular in the retail and business storage market areas, but home users could also make good use of it given a few years for the prices to reach acceptable levels (imagine backing up entire images of your largest hard drive five, six times over - and being able to store ALL of those complete hard-drive backup images on just the one holographic disc! That's mind-boggling.

Oh, but then we have companies like InPhase who are ALSO developing and bringing to market holography-based storage solutions... Ah, I can't WAIT for the next decade to arrive. :D

Dragged out of Christopher's memory and pasted
into his blog at 11/18/2006 04:56:00 AM. Roughly.
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