If you are over 10 years old, you may remember the days when movies and recorded TV shows were found not on shiny compact disc or digital video disc media, but on a black rectangular monolith of a cassette with labels on the front and spine, and two white spools inside. Yes, it was a video cassette, or a Video Head System (VHS) cassette and it prevailed for a little over 20 years as THE primary means by which one not only rented, bought, and watched movies, but also "taped" them off cable TV. No, not Laserdisc or even Betamax, but VHS!
As many of us are aware, VHS cassettes had their issues. They were sensitive to heat and light, wayward Video Cassette Recorders (VCRs) could munch them up with reckless abandon, and it was reported that they had a limited shelf life with rumors stating the lifespan to be anything from 5 to 20 years. Whatever the "true" lifespan was, VHS cassettes were also known for poor playback as the result of overuse or the aforementioned munchage, resulting in white horizontal lines that could sometimes be warded off by adjusting the "tracking" on the VCR. Oh, and compared to DVDs and Blu-Ray media today, VHS cassettes, with its spools of magnetically stored audiovisual data, provide a markedly mediocre viewing experience.
So, what's so good about VHS? What good things could the Retrobeliever possibly say about VHS? Well, I have five reasons why VHS cassettes are still useful and viable! Here goes:
5) No scratches! You can rent or borrow a VHS cassette from a library or store and still watch that movie, even if the tape is messed up at parts. But, if you try to watch a scratched-up DVD... it can be absolutely unwatchable if there are too many deep scratches. Give me white lines over pixelated freezes!
4) Splicing. If a stretch of a VHS tape has been munched by a VCR, you can splice the tape, re-tape the tape, and watch it with only a little bit of disruption. I used to do this sometimes, especially when my cheap Logix VCR would choke on my tapes. DVDs? You'd have to polish the DVD to get out hindering scratches.
3) They're cheap! In 2011, you can buy some decent VHS movies at a Salvation Army thrift store for a buck. That's right... one buck.
2) Easy recording. With VCRs, recording was as easy as switching your TV to VCR, navigating to the channel you wanted using the VCR (or your cable box), and pressing Record on your remote. Sure, you can record to DVD, but you need DVD-Rs or DVD-RWs. You didn't have to worry about such distinctions with VHSes.
1) Exclusive content. Even in 2001, there are certain TV shows you cannot easily get on DVD, such as old 80s cartoons. In other words, you still need a VCR to play those old tapes of shows and movies that have not yet been produced on DVD. I'm looking at you, Max Headroom!
Okay, I'm really stretching credibility by touting the wonders of VHS. Honestly, I would say that DVD has completely outmoded VHS with superior playback, navigability, durability, and portability. However, I can say one great thing about VHS, upon which I touched with number 5: if you borrow a VHS cassette from a library, you're almost always assured of being able to play the video from beginning to end, even if a few parts are mangled. On the other hand, if you borrow a DVD from a library, you have a good chance of having such a scratched-up copy that you can barely watch the movie without skipping large parts of it. That was the magic of VHS -- mangled tape could be slightly improved with the flattening that occurred when the tape was fed through video heads.
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