VHS Blog Post

Hi all you blog fans out there. I was just loading up Spotify and thought I’d just write a quick blog about something completely random. In thinking about this, I thought maybe I could write about a tired old video format that is not in mainstream usage anymore. After all, I’ve written about Blu Ray, why not this particular format I am going to refer to. I am of course talking about the VHS, or video as it will be widely known

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The battle between Betamax and Videotape was fierce, and unfortunately Sony lost out. I’m glad this happened as I can’t see us saying we’re going to watch a betamax tonight. I mean, every time we would have said video; we would’ve been corrected by a smart relative who wants to call everything by its proper name. I personally love the VHS format. Well ok, love is probably the wrong word to describe it. There is something about VHS which makes it special. Not the static you’d get if the tape was old or the flicker on the screen but just the feel of watching a video.

I still buy the odd video tape from the charity shop, although sadly they’re beginning to be phased out as they are considered a fire hazard. This really is health and safety gone mad. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tape explode into flames. I don’t quite understand it myself.

I know part of the trouble of having these tapes was the size of them, big boxes that would fill up a shelf in no time. DVDs and Blu Rays have much smaller boxes so their storage takes up less space. Also, once a video got old or damaged, the picture would deteriorate and suddenly that recording you did of CITV is just a static flicking mess. Despite this, millions of users used the format to tape any programme of the TV they wanted to watch or keep. This has been useful in recent times as sometimes the broadcaster do not have original recordings of stuff, so have recovered recordings from home users. I personally discovered many programmes I didn’t know about previously through just taping a channel while at school then coming home to watch. It’s still giving the channel the audience right?

Anyway, I shall end this rambling post about an old video format by saying thanks for reading, and if you’re still using VHS, just comment here about your thoughts on it!