The end of an era: they stop making VCRs – Diario Uno

The Japanese company Funai Electric, the last manufacturer of VCRs, stop producing this type of equipment to make ends meet due to the drop in sales and difficulty finding the pieces need to build them.

the company made this decision despite having sold 750,000 units last year, according to the report of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

Funai Electric, founded in the city of Osaka in 1961 but with offices also in Germany, Chia, Mexico, United States and Malaysia, VCRs manufactured also for large companies like Sanyo.

Solo, Funai continued to these days with the tradition started in 1956 by the American Ampex with “Quadruplex” which by its high price ($ 50,000) could only be acquired by chains television- and continued seven years later by Sony, with the VTR, which with its price of less than $ 1,000 sought to get into home consumption.

the same Japanese company launched in 1971 the U-matic, with a tape that could record up to 90 minutes with a simplified usability returned obsolete predecessors.

in 1972 Phillips Dutch introduced to the market the VCR, with square cassettes and recording time of one hour, designed to reach homes.

firm took this decision despite having sold 750,000 units last year the mid-70s videocassettes began to become mass products launches first use after the Betamax, Sony, and then VHS, JVC. The latter format won more acceptance among the public and began to prevail over his rival (although the Beta system continued to be used for professional or higher quality recordings).

Since the late 90′s, launched DVD in 1995 by a group of companies that, two years later, was formed by Hitachi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Mitsubishi, Sony, Toshiba, JVC, Thompson and Times Warner began to impose itself on videocassettes, therefore the greater capacity recording time as the best image fidelity.

Gradually, the main formats of video recorders stopped being manufactured. JVC abandoned its VHS in 2007 and Sony stopped selling the Betamax in 2015, but had already discontinued production of video recorders in 2002.

So, although Funai continued until now with the production of these devices, the succession of technological advances that improved image quality to DVD-from 4K- and content distribution, with the boom of video on demand, which has YouTube and Netflix as standard-bearers did much of the world leave the videocassettes years.