Funai Electric, a company that produces its own consumer electronics as well as handling production for other, larger companies, is the only remaining Japanese manufacturer of VCRs, but Nikkei reports it’ll close down the lines by August.
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In recent years, viewer habits have changed considerably – the advent of the DVR (digital video recorder) machine allowed users to ditch the clunky tapes and easily save a programme on a digital harddrive. According to Funai, the difficulty in getting parts and declining sales were primary reasons that led to their decision to shut down.
Funai Electric sold as many as 15 million VCRs, but the company only sold 750,000 recorders a year ago and now it has chose to end production in August. Over time, VCR recorders were even capable of doubling this capacity, recording up to 10 hours of video on one cassette. Funai actually makes its VCRs in China and then sells them in many countries around the world. It only succeeded over Betamax because it was slightly cheaper and backed by the porn industry.
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Sony, which was also a competitor in this field, announced at the end of 2015 that it would stop selling cassettes commercially this year. Certain rare films available on VHS – often obscure horror titles – never made it to DVD or BluRay, making them highly prized and valued, while the imperfect image quality is beloved by many who grew up watching old cassettes.
