Japan Making Its Last VCR This Month

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Holy cow! Talk about having a hell of a run. What I want to know is, with sales of 750,000 a year world wide, who was still buying VCRs? Do any of you even know someone that still has a VCR?

Japanese financial newspaper Nikkei reported on Thursday that Funai Electric Company, Japan's last manufacturer of VHS video cassette tape recorders, will end production on the recorders this month. According to Nikkei, the company is halting production due to a declining market, and difficulty in obtaining the supply of parts. Funai had manufactured the units in factories in China, and sold units under the Sanyo brand, among others, in North America.
 
I still have one at home, but it hasn't been used (or connected) for at least 5 years.

I have older relatives who still use their VCR's. They pass around tapes or pick them up cheap at garage sales.
I even passed on most my old tapes. Told them, no, they don't need to give them back :p
 
I tossed my old tapes years ago. I lost some irreplaceable things, but in the long run I probably would have never re-watched any of it anyway.
I'd actually be curious how recorded television (HD) looks on a VCR. Does it even work correctly?
 
Domingo said:
I tossed my old tapes years ago. I lost some irreplaceable things, but in the long run I probably would have never re-watched any of it anyway.
I'd actually be curious how recorded television (HD) looks on a VCR. Does it even work correctly?
Click to expand...

If it did work, it would probably look terrible.
 
I don't have one, but I still have a bunch of old VHS-C camcorder tapes with old memories on them.

I wouldn't mind grabbing a VHS-C to VHS adapter and a VCR and use them with composite in lines to a computer in order to dub these to a digital formats before the tapes self destruct...
 
I need to buy an SVHS player soon so I can archive some of my home movies in digital format.
Probably get a Panasonic AG1970 or AG1980.
 
I still have one in my media cabinet. I basically have left it there as filler for a shelf that would otherwise be empty. I think I still have a box of VHS tapes in the storage room, but lets be honest, they are probably old porn tapes that came from high school.
Damn I'm old.
 
I have an old Sony DVD burner...kind of like a VCR. Still in use as well but just for hooking up old consoles to a newer TV.
 
Tossed all my VHS tapes some years back... and yeah even the ones where girls were silly enough to let me video tape ;) I haven't had a working VCR for easily 15 years, figure it's not worth $5 at a garage sale to spank to some old memories so out it went.
 
Father-In Law. He still has all the old tapes from when my Wife was a kid/teen. He refuses to let me convert them to DVD so, they sit and rot. Probably already junk.
 
Zepher said:
I need to buy an SVHS player soon so I can archive some of my home movies in digital format.
Probably get a Panasonic AG1970 or AG1980.
Click to expand...

That's what I'm thinking too.

What do you use as a video in to your computer to record the tapes? Do you have any faith in those "component in" USB dongles?

When I last did this back in ~2001 I was in college and had a PCI Hauppage TV tuner in my computer I used for component in, recording the video in virtualdub.

It was really difficult to get drives fast enough to do the recording at that time, as I had to write raw video data at a rather high rate. As I recall I striped two 7200rpm drives in order to accomplish it, and then it only barely worked.

These days with modern hard drives/SSD's and computers fast enough to do some encoding real time before writing it should be much easier, I think. :p
 
you guys are fancy with your new technologies.....

20160721_123506_zpsor74gezw.jpg
 
Rocking a Goldstar VHS & DVD combo unit in bedroom.

Have a client whose wife has a whole bedroom full of VHS tapes. Retail movies and tons of TV shows self recorded on thousands of tapes. Thought I had stepped into a TDK factory.
 
Still have one myself, not really in use but it's sitting there. People still buy these things at my work, older people just refuse to get newer tech, they are afraid of it and of losing the investment they made back in the 80's and 90's on vs tapes. Sad really.
 
Got one in the storage pile with maybe 20 tapes. Hard to throw away the Terminator 2 special edition tape but I can't bear to watch SD movies.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's what I'm thinking too.

What do you use as a video in to your computer to record the tapes? Do you have any faith in those "component in" USB dongles?

When I last did this back in ~2001 I was in college and had a PCI Hauppage TV tuner in my computer I used for component in, recording the video in virtualdub.

It was really difficult to get drives fast enough to do the recording at that time, as I had to write raw video data at a rather high rate. As I recall I striped two 7200rpm drives in order to accomplish it, and then it only barely worked.

These days with modern hard drives/SSD's and computers fast enough to do some encoding real time before writing it should be much easier, I think. :p
Click to expand...

There is no need to use component in; I don't think any VCR on the market ever had component out. S-video is as good as it gets.

I am using the following setup pictured above:

JVC SR-MV50 -> AVT-8710 Time Base Corrector -> ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB -> Lagarith Lossless Codec AVI Capture via Virtualdub

There are still some hoops to jump through getting it set up with drivers and such, but it works. Capture to a non OS drive and you should be ok in terms of the drive/controller keeping up. In my case with the HD 600 USB, I had to do a registry hack to be able to adjust input volume from the capture device, which is necessary in some cases because certain tapes will have too high of volume and clip.

Once I have the AVI file, I run it through Premiere Pro CC for contrast, brightness, and color corrections, as well as use NeatVideo's denoiser. However, I believe you can do all of those corrections in virtualdub with the right plugins. I prefer Premiere.

Export (or convert) to mpeg2 and it is ready to be run through DVD authoring software.
 
I have one that is in a box. The sole season is because my wife has a tape of her birthday when she was really little. If she didn't have that then it would of never been purchased.
 
mnewxcv said:
There is no need to use component in; I don't think any VCR on the market ever had component out. S-video is as good as it gets.

I am using the following setup pictured above:

JVC SR-MV50 -> AVT-8710 Time Base Corrector -> ATI TV Wonder HD 600 USB -> Lagarith Lossless Codec AVI Capture via Virtualdub

There are still some hoops to jump through getting it set up with drivers and such, but it works. Capture to a non OS drive and you should be ok in terms of the drive/controller keeping up. In my case with the HD 600 USB, I had to do a registry hack to be able to adjust input volume from the capture device, which is necessary in some cases because certain tapes will have too high of volume and clip.

Once I have the AVI file, I run it through Premiere Pro CC for contrast, brightness, and color corrections, as well as use NeatVideo's denoiser. However, I believe you can do all of those corrections in virtualdub with the right plugins. I prefer Premiere.

Export (or convert) to mpeg2 and it is ready to be run through DVD authoring software.
Click to expand...


Nice. I'm not familiar with the Lagarith codec. Back in the day the lossless one to use during recording was called Huffyuv, but since tben I presume the advances in CPU power have allowed better lossless compression with newer codecs.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's what I'm thinking too.

What do you use as a video in to your computer to record the tapes? Do you have any faith in those "component in" USB dongles?

When I last did this back in ~2001 I was in college and had a PCI Hauppage TV tuner in my computer I used for component in, recording the video in virtualdub.

It was really difficult to get drives fast enough to do the recording at that time, as I had to write raw video data at a rather high rate. As I recall I striped two 7200rpm drives in order to accomplish it, and then it only barely worked.

These days with modern hard drives/SSD's and computers fast enough to do some encoding real time before writing it should be much easier, I think. :p
Click to expand...

I have a Matrox RT.X2, RT.x100, RT2500, and RT2000. I just have to setup a machine to use one of them, probably the RT.X2 as that is the newest of the bunch and works with Windows 7.

matrox rt.x2 card.jpg
rt03.jpg
 
If you have Firewire and and old DV Camcorder, some of them had AV inputs/outputs on them and you could use the camera as a firewire interface into a PC.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Nice. I'm not familiar with the Lagarith codec. Back in the day the lossless one to use during recording was called Huffyuv, but since tben I presume the advances in CPU power have allowed better lossless compression with newer codecs.
Click to expand...

huffyuv is still kicking, but I struggled to get it work well across platforms (32bit/64bit) and for that reason I went to lagarith. I was capturing on a 32bit xp machine, and could not edit on my 64bit rig. Lagarith works fine with both, though I am now capturing on my 64bit rig anyway. Theyre both lossless.

Zepher said:
I have a Matrox RT.X2, RT.x100, RT2500, and RT2000. I just have to setup a machine to use one of them, probably the RT.X2 as that is the newest of the bunch and works with Windows 7.

How will you connect a VCR to that? I don't see S Video.
Click to expand...
 
Zepher said:
If you have Firewire and and old DV Camcorder, some of them had AV inputs/outputs on them and you could use the camera as a firewire interface into a PC.
Click to expand...

That's true, but then you are capturing as DV, which is not lossless.
 
alot of public CCTV is still tape based. i had to be part of a tribunal chair. much of it was shifting through a ton of tapes. it seems even alot of the oldies i was with had forgotten how to hook up vcrs. even the spotty 20 something "techie" who was paid to hook it all was clueless about them didnt even know which way the tapes went in or wtf a bnc/scart cable was. in the end the chairman noted how i did all of the work and i got paid for it.

youd never guess what they all still liked about tapes? its the way you fastforward and rewind everyone liked the way it works on tapes rather than dvd/bluray/digital
 
Zepher said:
I need to buy an SVHS player soon so I can archive some of my home movies in digital format.
Probably get a Panasonic AG1970 or AG1980.
Click to expand...
Get? Get from where? Those model are at least 20 years old.
Nothing digital about those old units. SVHS is a "extended bandwith" VHS, that is all. This is analog technology. It has a resolution better than plan VHS but not quite as good as DVD.
Those 2 models were popular back in the AB roll video editing days; I'm talking the mid 1990s.
 
mnewxcv said:
How will you connect a VCR to that? I don't see S Video.
Click to expand...

The RGB RCA connectors are Composite Video, Component and S-Video. There are cables, one with an S-Video female end and 2 RCA ends, that plug into the Blue and Red RCA jacks on the I/O box.
In the Matrox Settings, you choose what capture format you want and plug into the corresponding jacks.

I should check the box and make sure the cables are in it as we never used S-Video in on the RT.X2, only Firewire and Composite.

Anyone wanna trade me an AG-1980 deck for my Camera?

new toys 2.jpg
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Get? Get from where? Those model are at least 20 years old.
Nothing digital about those old units. SVHS is a "extended bandwith" VHS, that is all. This is analog technology. It has a resolution better than plan VHS but not quite as good as DVD.
Those 2 models were popular back in the AB roll video editing days; I'm talking the mid 1990s.
Click to expand...

I have to get them from eBay or some other second hand source. I need SVHS since I have a lot of footage recorded on SVHS. The SQPB that some VHS decks have will play an SVHS tape but at only 240 lines of resolution.

I was doing video production work from 1993 till 2014, I stopped in 2014 when my hips went out on me, couldn't shoot anymore.

these were our analog edit suites back in 99 or so, right before we went non-linear,
old-edit2.jpg
old-edit1.jpg
 
Last edited:
Zepher said:
The RGB RCA connectors are Composite Video, Component and S-Video. There are cables, one with an S-Video female end and 2 RCA ends, that plug into the Blue and Red RCA jacks on the I/O box.
In the Matrox Settings, you choose what capture format you want and plug into the corresponding jacks.

I should check the box and make sure the cables are in it as we never used S-Video in on the RT.X2, only Firewire and Composite.

Anyone wanna trade me an AG-1980 deck for my Camera?

View attachment 5660
Click to expand...

funny, I almost bought one of those cameras last year. I ended up going DVX100B -> HVX200 ->GH2 ->Samsung NX500 (current)
 
I have waited all these years and now is just the right time to bust out those boxes I have stored for 15 years. Good ebay these old tapes and make bank, tonight WE eat steak!
 
The big thing that killed VHS tapes for me was not so much the lack of quality, but because the transition from VHS tapes to DVDs occurred at the same time that the transition from 4:3 to 16:9 occurred. As such, widescreen movies on VHS tape are VERY rare. I simply can't stand the idea of a large portion of the movie on each side being chopped off in order to fit an obsolete aspect ratio. The few tapes that I do still have are widescreen, kept mostly for nostalgic reasons. I have a huge Laserdisc collection also, for much the same reason.
 
I need to grab a VHS player. My last one died on me... Never know when one of those will come in handy! Might come across some ultra rare vintage porn or lost documentary in a garage sale or online somewhere. Maybe some old video on 0-Point energy! I did come across a rare video called Free Energy. Never getting rid of that!
 
Zepher said:
I have to get them from eBay or some other second hand source. I need SVHS since I have a lot of footage recorded on SVHS. The SQPB that some VHS decks have will play an SVHS tape but at only 240 lines of resolution.

I was doing video production work from 1993 till 2014, I stopped in 2014 when my hips went out on me, couldn't shoot anymore.

these were our analog edit suites back in 99 or so, right before we went non-linear,
View attachment 5663View attachment 5662
Click to expand...


That's pretty cool, but I am curious. Why shove everything into a dividing wall? Noise? Heat?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I always liked that era of IBM workstation and pedestal server cases.

Do you have one of those awesome keyboards with the bluish indigo enter key as well?
Click to expand...

lol, I do have the lenovo keyboards, thanks to a member in the freebies thread for not needing them! My setup is ever changing, so heres what it looked like back in the winter:

20160105_172828_zpsy4dkihww.jpg


I do like those lenovo keyboards a lot.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
That's pretty cool, but I am curious. Why shove everything into a dividing wall? Noise? Heat?
Click to expand...
We just wanted a wall with all the stuff stuck in it. The monitors were a little too high though, but you just lean back in the chair, lol.

you can see the setup in this vid I slapped together from clips when I was playing with our new Sony VX1000 camera,
 
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