It's the end of an era as VHS finally heads into the West along with Frodo, Ronald Reagan and Roy Rogers. The final shipment of the once ever-present tapes has left the warehouse of the format's last major supplier. The business's owner claims that the same will happen to DVD within a few years and that it'll yield completely to Blu-ray... but I kinda doubt it. The same was said of VHS more than twenty years ago when laserdisc enjoyed a brief rise in popularity as premium home entertainment. But Blu-ray's attraction is only going to really take off once the capability of recording discs becomes more common, and that ain't happening yet. And there's always gonna be a need for cheap data storage, and just about every Blu-ray player is backward compatible with DVD anyway.
But for the VHS, it is indeed "Farewell, my lovely". It cannot be said that it did not have a good run though. And between you and me Faithful Reader: nothing will ever tear me apart from my beloved - albeit outdated in more ways than one - VHS set of the original Star Wars Trilogy :-)
