VHS Is Officially Dead

It’s been almost three years since a movie was released on VHS, the last being 2006’s A History of Violence. Even though the format has been all-but dead, one company has been keeping it on its last legs, continuing to buy and sell VHS tapes. But this Christmas will be the last one that Distribution Video and Audio carries the outdated format, officially bringing a close to video cassette tapes.

The LA Times ran a story of the end of Distribution Video and Audio’s reign of VHS distribution. The company doesn’t produce videos, but buys unwanted product and resells it for not much more. As the article says, they buy for pennies and sell for dimes, but at least they make a profit. Obviously they wouldn’t have gone on for two more years with videotape if there wasn’t some demand for it, but with DVD players so affordable now, it makes sense that the demand would have waned by now. Between digital downloads and Blu-ray, it may not be long before Distribution Video and Audio starts buying DVDs for pennies and selling for dimes.

I have to admit, I thought the format was pretty much done for already. Over the holidays I realized I have three VCRs laying around my house, but none of them are connected to anything. Five or six copy paper boxes full of video tapes sit in my storage closet, waiting to be converted to DVD, although most of them will wind up getting tossed without being seen again when my wife gets tired of the space they occupy. C’est la vie.