Last VHS manufacturer in Japan stops production

VCR. File photo

It’s time to bid farewell once and for all to the once precious VCR,  well, if you’re one of those few who haven’t yet.

The days of the Video Cassette Recorder (VCR) is coming to a quiet end, as the last known manufacturer of the once-ubiquitous device announced that it will stop making new machines by the end of July.

According to Engadget, Japanese company Funai Electric has decided to call it quits from VCR distributions, long after its competitors have pulled out of the game.

The Osaka-based firm, which started producing VCR formats in the early 1980s, decided to bow out after citing declining sales. Difficulty in obtaining the necessary parts has also made it difficult to continue.

The move, which many considered inevitable, comes as no surprise given today’s ever-growing technology favoring lossless digital transfer.

Despite this, 750,000 VCR players were reportedly sold worldwide last year, majority coming from hipsters and film purists, who wish to view certain titles in a “vintage” format.

“These are movies that feel too cleaned-up on DVD and Blu-ray, as if they were never meant to look that good,” one collector told The Independent. “You can see the mistakes they made and the bad makeup and everything. Watching them on VHS is closer to the old drive-in or grindhouse theater, the way the director intended it to look.”

At its peak, Funai Electric sold as many as 15 million VCR’s per year,  while also producing products in China for Sanyo, who sold them in the US and other markets.  Khristian Ibarrola