58% of Americans Still Own a VCR

Mom has my old one. It sat in a back closet for almost 10 years before I got the OK from the wife to ditch it. All the old VHS tapes went away at a garage sale for 25 cents each. This is why mom still uses it... she buys cheap movies at garage/yard sales and fleamarkets. I have been trying for at least 5 years to get her to dump her tapes, she won't do it.
 
MajorDomo said:
A new Gallup poll found that Americans aren't as up on the latest tech as we have been led to believe. A staggering 58% of American households still have a functional VCR and out of that number, 100% of them are still trying to figure out how to program the damn thing. :D
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I think I still have 2, though one of them is in a box (probably in storage). Why would I get rid of it. I've concert videos that are not going to show up on DVD and most of what I see on Youtube is worse than my videos. I may not watch them again, but I have no reason to toss them or a VCR that works perfectly.
 
roma said:
Toward the end a lot of VCRs were being built into TVs, dual DVD/VCR decks etc
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They still sell Blu-Ray VHS combo drives and I've seen people buy them. Hell I have a cassette deck somewhere (and cassettes, most of which haven't been played in decades).
 
I actually have a VCR in my home entertainment unit. :D It's not hooked up though, I just did not know what to do with it so I put it there. I should hook it up for kicks. I don't even have any VHS tapes here though.

I kind of miss VCRs, they were simple, and just worked. No skipping, or freezing, or DRM, or any of that crap. you could stop a tape, take it out, and it was where you left off. Just don't forget to rewind if it's a rental. :p
 
octoberasian said:
Star Wars original trilogy on VHS that has no added CG scenes or other extras that Lucas Films added in the DVD and BD releases.

That is why I still have a VHS.
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Time to trade in that VCR for a Laserdisc player...If you love the original Star Wars, it's worth it.
 
I still have a VCR. That is because I still have a bunch of tapes of vacations I took with my parents. Due to my laziness, I still haven't converted them to digital yet.
 
Tossed my VCR in the trash over 10 years ago. Glad those days are over.

Either stream, or use my little 15tb NAS for movies.
 
About 7 years ago I bought the entire series of Babylon 5 on VHS. 3 years later I bought them on DVD >_<
 
arestavo said:
About 7 years ago I bought the entire series of Babylon 5 on VHS. 3 years later I bought them on DVD >_<
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I don't think many people keep VHS decks for prerecorded video. Most old movies are available on DVD and Blu Ray for next to nothing. So unless you've got niche collection (e.g. the guy with otherwise unavailable Anime flicks), that's not a reason to keep it. I keep mine exclusively for stuff I recorded off of TV...well that and some music that I never bothered to xfer to disk (cause HiFi VHS was actually quite good at recording audio)
 
A lot of households have home movies on VHS.

I have about 15 decks and have been doing captures to digital for friends, family and local organizations for a long time. The good decks are hard to find in working condition and have been rising in value the last 5+ years. Like good, old cassette and reel decks, the best VCRs were mechanical and electronic works of art.

I have a couple of Panasonic AG-7750s with rack ears and all, working perfectly despite the years. Of all the vintage hardware I own, the sheer over engineering of those decks outdoes anything else I have.
 
I wonder.
Is there a consumer device that converts video tapes to digital format? There's got to be countless number of home video tapes out there. It'd be a pity to see all the family memories / records made inaccessible for future generations.
 
HFBallad said:
I wonder.
Is there a consumer device that converts video tapes to digital format? There's got to be countless number of home video tapes out there. It'd be a pity to see all the family memories / records made inaccessible for future generations.
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Walk into any best buy. They have VHS/DVD (may play Blu Ray too) combos. i'm 95% sure the entire point of those is to do conversions.
 
Yeah we have a few VCR's. They're in a closet in the basement lol.
 
MajorDomo said:
A new Gallup poll found that Americans aren't as up on the latest tech as we have been led to believe. A staggering 58% of American households still have a functional VCR and out of that number, 100% of them are still trying to figure out how to program the damn thing. :D
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why staggering? my parents still have a TON of kids movies that they keep for the grand kids and lack the inclination to move the library over to DVD despite my having bought a specific machine for doing so. while poor quality by recent standards it works fine for the kids. This seems more of a case of don't replace until broken
 
I havent used a VCR since the mid 90's. Went to laserdisc>DVD>bluray> now I torrent all my movies as it is less a hassle.
 
Yeah, this is definitely a question of semantics. Does owning a VCR mean you have one stashed in the attic? Does it mean you still use it? If it's just a matter of having one somewhere in your house that may not have actually been used in 10 years, then the 50% number seems reasonable to me.

Also, just thought it was funny that, as I type this on my phone, it just tried to autocorrect "VCR." I think that pretty much sums up where we're at these days lol.
 
People have a tendency to keep things they purchased, even if only in storage and unused.

This statistic could be brought up about composite video cables. Most of us don't use them, but we have piles of them :rolleyes:
 
octoberasian said:
Star Wars original trilogy on VHS that has no added CG scenes or other extras that Lucas Films added in the DVD and BD releases.

That is why I still have a VHS.
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They released a DVD set that had both the theatrical release and the 90's make overs. Of course the original theatrical is in letterbox 4:3 while the 'make over' is 16:9. Lucas at some point became a petty jerk towards fans of the original theatrical releases.
 
Movie night used to involve getting into your car and going out to your local video rental place, returning with your bulky cassette tapes (and maybe a couple of pizzas), and loading them into your overtly mechanical VCR with all its clicks and whirrs.

There is something to be said for convenience, but I rather miss the above. It made movie night feel more special.
 
I have a huge box full of my parents home movies on VHS tape I'm suppose to "convert" to DVDs for them.
But I doubt if they have a working DVD player anymore.
Will probably capture the contents and convert the videos to MP4s and give them thumb drives with the video on them.
 
I can't really be the only one who hangs onto a VCR for old porn that I'm too nostalgic to throw away.
 
For the people who still own the VCR for the Star Wars Trilogy just get the Laserdisc copy on DVD much easier that way to watch lol
 
Stiletto said:
I can't really be the only one who hangs onto a VCR for old porn that I'm too nostalgic to throw away.
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Hahaha, I dunno that many people that get nostalgic about porn, but whatever floats your boat. :D

And yes, I do still have a VCR stuck away in a closet somewhere, along with 100 or so VHS tapes.
 
Smashing Young Man said:
Movie night used to involve getting into your car and going out to your local video rental place, returning with your bulky cassette tapes (and maybe a couple of pizzas), and loading them into your overtly mechanical VCR with all its clicks and whirrs.

There is something to be said for convenience, but I rather miss the above. It made movie night feel more special.
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It was always a social experience more than anything. I'd rarely go and hire a video by myself.
 
jpm100 said:
They released a DVD set that had both the theatrical release and the 90's make overs. Of course the original theatrical is in letterbox 4:3 while the 'make over' is 16:9. Lucas at some point became a petty jerk towards fans of the original theatrical releases.
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Many argue that somewhere deep inside LucasFilms resides the original release in 16:9 format just waiting to be released as a BD copy, untouched, no CGI added scenes, and no altered endings in Return of the Jedi.

Then again, there are (or were) pirated copies where people have taken the current BD releases and excised the CGI scenes out of it, and reverted to the original ending. Then again, it looks off because the original ending isn't in BD format so somebody took the VHS version and upscaled/stretched it or something to fit the BD release. Others are saying there's even a better version on Laserdisc that is 16:9 format, but I have yet to find that anywhere.

The day I see a proper original theatrical release version of Star Wars Original Trilogy in 16:9, 1080p on Bluray is probably the day I win the lottery. I think I have a greater chance of visiting Mars before I hit 80 years old than seeing that happen.

Thus, I will hold onto the VHS version as long as possible even if it means having to fix my VCR myself if it ever breaks down. I have been intending to transfer it to my computer to preserve it further but have not found a good video capture card that has "good capture software". (Unless, one of you guys can recommend me one.)
 
I'm part of that 58%. I bought a bedroom TV when I moved to my current residence several years ago that was a combo TV, including DVD and VCR. That TV is now in a guest bedroom and doesn't get much usage. The VCR part of it probably hasn't been used in several years.
 
Btw this survey and most surveys of this nature are complete garbage. 58% of households? How the hell can you even approach an acceptable confidence interval that supports this? I never listen to these surveys because they mean nothing in the end.
 
Got rid of or last VCR in 2006 and donated all our tapes to Goodwill. They just take up so much damn space, when I can fit 100 DVDs in a small box.
 
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