You can read the article here.

 

As much as I despise Wal-Mart, I'm glad they're finally nudging people into the 21rst century when it comes to movie buying.

I'm saddened for Jethro, who'll no longer be able to purchase his cass-ette tapes for that VCR-ma-jigger.

Now Wal-Mart is denying they're going to stop selling tapes.

 

 

OMG DRAWMUH~!

 

Or not.

"Say Lurlene, our youngin' has a Beta Club in her school. I wonder if they have Deliverance."

 

[/bad bad bad horrible unfunny joke]

My brother collects movies on VHS. I don't see the problem with owning tapes. If you have a VCR in working condition, why not use it? Why feel the need to switch to better technology for the sake of better technology? Especially in cases where the source material is tape.

Because tapes deteriorate over time where DVDs are supposedly supposed to last longer.

VHS is fine for materials not yet available on DVD. Outside of that, though, there's no reason not to join the DVD revolution. With DVD you get:

 

1) Affordability. This is what kept VHS from being even bigger than it was. VHS was priced-to-rent. DVDs are priced-to-own. Only now do you see VHS being more affordable, but even then, it's only a few bucks less than DVD.

 

2) Better quality. For the same reason you don't buy cassette tapes anymore and instead, purchase CDs. You get better quality with DVD. Improved picture, original aspect ration (unless YOU choose otherwise), and better sound.

 

3) More durability. Unless you treat your DVDs like crap or get a rare defect, they'll be hanging tough long past VHS. You could baby your tapes all you'd like; repeated use will wear them down and eventually, make them useless. DVDs can be given endless spins and still be A-ok.

 

4) Bonus materials. VHS rarely gave you incentives outside of the feature presentation. With DVD, that's half of the selling point. Commenteries, documentaries, trailers, behind-the-scene looks, bloopers, outtakes, deleted scenes, etc. The possibilities are never-ending with DVD.

Nothing sucks worse than hearing that scraping sound that tells you that tape just broke while rewinding. It took me years to find Transformers the Movie after my original tape of it broke.

My brother collects movies on VHS.  I don't see the problem with owning tapes.  If you have a VCR in working condition, why not use it?  Why feel the need to switch to better technology for the sake of better technology?  Especially in cases where the source material is tape.

Is your brother the caveman from the Geico commercials? I agree with Bruiser. The only reason to have something on VHS anymore is if it simply isn't available on DVD. There are infinite reasons to own DVDs as opposed to VHS tapes and none of those include "switching to better technology just for the sake of better technology."

 

One of the major ones Bruiser neglected to mention was STORAGE SPACE. DVD cases are simply easier to store and take up less space than a big, clunky and noisy VHS tape, with their moving parts and cheap cardboard slipcovers (if you're lucky). VHS is just a fucking mess and are subject to all sorts of mishaps that will render your tape unusable. Your VCR never breaks or you never find out it's broken until it's eating your tape. Expose your VHS tape to extreme heat or magnetism and it's a wrap.

 

Too many reasons to list and I can't think of even one why you would attempt to defend the format (and your brother) anymore. Working at K-Mart around all those awesome customers has finally warped your fragile little mind. There's no reason NOT to switch to DVD. Join the rest of us in 2005. I've been preaching about the revolution since late '97. It's about time everyone else caught up.

I've always wondered if anti-VHS people also tend to look down on people still collecting vinyl. I've been a strong DVD guy since '98 or '99 and only have about 5 VHS tapes left, but I've always had a softspot for my records and I really don't see that changing anytime soon. Though admittably, finding new needles can be annoying sometimes.

I've never been into vinyl, but isn't there a notion (or truth) that music originally intended for vinyl sounds better on that medium than CD?

 

CJ, I was gonna mention the space issues, too. We used to have a ton of VHS (commercial and otherwise) and lemme tell you, it looked impressive, but we were creating new ways to store all of them. When you're storing them on a tall shelf two deep AND add on towers of small, stackable crates to fit MOST of your videos into one area, something's wrong. DVDs can take up space, but only if you've got massive amounts. I've got about 400 right now and they all fit nicely into one shelving unit that doesn't eat up much space. It looks a lot more slick, too, if you want to talk about appearances.

1) Affordability. This is what kept VHS from being even bigger than it was. VHS was priced-to-rent. DVDs are priced-to-own. Only now do you see VHS being more affordable, but even then, it's only a few bucks less than DVD.

 

4) Bonus materials. VHS rarely gave you incentives outside of the feature presentation. With DVD, that's half of the selling point. Commenteries, documentaries, trailers, behind-the-scene looks, bloopers, outtakes, deleted scenes, etc. The possibilities are never-ending with DVD.

I quoted these two things because I wanted to say that it seems to me that DVDs are getting more expensive, and I think part of the reason is because of all the bonus features. I mean, putting 6 extra hours and making documentaries and including 2 extra discs of stuff can't be cheap, and I think that is a factor in DVD prices these days.

 

Like, a new DVD movie at Wal-Mart (in Canada) generally runs around $25. That's not cheap. (Well, maybe I'm the cheap one, but still). The reason this bugs me though, is because I so rarely use the bonus features on DVDs. Like, some DVDs have really neat features, I'll admit, but I honestly don't care enough about some movies to watch 6 hours of extra stuff, know what I mean?

 

Personally, I think there could be a market for barebones DVDs, for cheap people like myself. Just release the movie on DVD, price it at $15 bucks, and bang. I don't have to pay ten extra dollars for stuff I may not even use.

 

Also, I *really* think that there should be some sort of restrictions on what you can call a DVD. This is gonna sound silly, but when a movie first comes on DVD, and there's only one version of it, that should be THE DVD. No calling it a Special Edition or any of that crap. It's the DVD. If you then come out with another version of the DVD with extra bonus stuff, call THAT the special edition. The whole double-dipping bit really irks me sometimes, as well as the fact that movies only seem to exist in Special Editions. If the only edition that exists is the Special Edition, isn't it the Normal Edition?

 

Hey, you know that thing when you say/read a word too many times in a row and it starts to lose all meaning? That just happened with the word Edition.