NO!!!!!  You can’t do this to me- or to anyone else!

I just went out and bought a new one.  Because the old one didn’t work very well.  (Plus, SONY decides that certain programs can’t be copied.  They inserted the ‘copyright police’ into the DVD portion of device.  That’s despite the Supreme Court ruling that recording TV shows for home use does not constitute copyright infringement!)

Nevertheless, the world is retiring the VCR- the video cassette recorder- at the end of this month.  Despite the fact that I have three or four of them (even one that erases commercials, so I get to see shows uninterrupted.)  Despite the fact that I have about 100 tapes.

And, no I never had blinking “12:00″s.  I knew how to program the units- well and easily.  (OK.  In my old house, we always had blackouts.  Dominion Power wouldn’t bury the power lines, which were always falling down.  So, there were blinking 12:00’s- but only till I got home and reprogrammed the devices.)

And, I loved my VCR.  Because I could watch one program and still see the other one I liked on competitive channels.  Or, when the networks like HBO (who didn’t yet offer “on-demand” services) would show a movie I really wanted to see at 4:00 in the morning- which meant I could tape it and see it when I wanted to do so.

The VCR is what let us develop the time-shifting habit that is the norm now. (It also lend to binge-watching.)  But, I’ve been doing that for three decades.  And, using my “commercial erasing” VCR (leaving 2 seconds of blue screen as it zoomed ahead) meant I could see most programs in 41 minutes.  A real time saver.

Back in the 1990’s, 2/3 of US homes had VCR’s- reaching 90% penetration some 15 years later.  And, that played havoc with the networks’ ability to charge what they wanted for advertisements.  Because they lacked clear information as to how many folks really watched their programs.

And, don’t forget “BlockBuster”.   Or, “Hollywood Video”.   These stores seemed to be on every other block, offering movies for us to rent.

These two firms managed to stay in business by switching to DVD rentals, as DVD’s became as ubiquitous as VCRs.  But, while DVD sales began in earnest around 1997, they were waning less than a decade later.

But, the “on demand” services, the cable and antenna firms’s DVR services are the real reason the VCR (and DVD’s)  is meeting its demise.  After all, there is no technological advantage proffered by the VCR-  no deeper, richer sound nor any more luxurious color.  Just – at least in my case- the ability to see the programs sans commercials, which streaming services and on demand viewing force one to watch..  I’m not getting rid of my devices for just that reason.

Oh, I still have my turntable, too.  Because most of the records I own will never be available via CD.  And, those records sound fantastic on my high-tech sound system.

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