Digital Trends
Sure, home video might be all the craze now, but it was also the rage back in the Dark Ages, when everyday folks would go around with camcorders loaded with (shudder) videotape and attempt to record important events in their lives for posterity. The systems might have been limited to simple play and record buttons, but sometimes the devices even worked!
VHS tape, the format that for better—and worse—brought video into untold millions of households around the world is finally going the way of the dinosaur…at least in the United States. After the 2008 holiday season, Distribution Audio Video—the last major distributor of VHS tapes in the United States—is finally calling it quits, and will stop distributing VHS tapes. Although Hollywood hasn’t released a movie in VHS format since 2006, a number of bargain retailers were still stocking the format, and it’s also lived on in a number of isolated markets like cruise ships, public libraries, military bases, and care facilities.
Earlier this month, for the first time ever, consumers rented more DVDs than VHS cassettes, according to the Video Software Dealers Association, a nonprofit entertainment trade association.
According to the association, consumers rented 28.2 million DVDs compared to 27.3 million VHS cassettes during the week ended June 15.
It is the latest milestone for the digital video disk (DVD) video format, which was first introduced six years ago. According to the association’s figures, DVD year-to-date rental revenue surpassed VHS rental revenue for the first time in May.
Sean Bersell, a spokesman for the association, said several factors caused the format’s popularity in the rental stores.
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