💬 Weekly Question: Should We Bring the VCR Back?
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Vinyl came back. Cassette tapes came back. Why not VHS tapes?!
Today, I went hunting for a VCR online. They haven’t been manufactured since 2016, so the only options are used or un/used. I haven’t found one I’m happy with yet and it looks like it will be a hell of a thing to load up with good-quality recordable tapes. But in addition to wanting to get access to a lot of old films I can’t find anywhere on DVD/Blu-Ray or digital, I want the freedom to be able to record films and TV episodes directly from my TV again. Remember when that was our privilege? Remember when we didn’t have to stay enthralled to streamers to rewatch the films they otherwise refuse to release physical copies of? Remember when we were the curators of our own home library and not streamers that could snatch away what we thought was ours (I’m thinking digital purchases that are, of course, really just long-term rentals until licensing deals lapse)?
So, here’s my question for you this week: If the VCR was returned to circulation, would you be interested?
When you answer, tell me what you miss, if anything, about VCRs and the once-ubiquitous VHS tape that we recorded everything on in the 80s and 90s.
If someone created a VCR that never eats the tapes, I’d buy it.
My parents asked me to transfer some home videos to digital a few years back, and a coworker had a VCR with USB output, so I popped in a cassette and saw footage of my older brother as a three year old at Disneyland getting bowled over by the White Rabbit (who was late, was late, for a very important date). This fabled family story having actual video evidence was amazing, but unfortunately interrupted seconds later by a mid-season episode of Dallas that had been recorded over it.