[EVA] The VHS era is officially over. Things have changed....forever.

[Ayanami]

Sad to hear considering how I long preferred it to the poorly designed DVD, despite how little it affects things now (it's a bigger shame these days that worthless crap like 3-D is killing off film cinema). It's a special shame that "Be Kind, Rewind", a film that glorified the format, was never released on it. Still, I'm very proud of my (still growing, if relatively slowly) VHS collection. Particularly the anime (I have EoE on Manga's VHS, probably the last commercial subbed anime VHS). If you know how to calibrate and take care of your equipment, there's little need to rebuy stuff you already have. Fans have it good now. One can get Eva for about 60 bucks on DVD, and the DVDs actually look good unlike the original ones (part of the reason I made the effort to collect the sub tapes instead), or they can almost as easily bootleg it. To get the same way back when cost over $600. It's way I always am irked whenever someone complains about prices now.
 Anime's dirt cheap.  

As for Bluray, it's still too early to tell. I'd say the linked article has some valid points, but is also rather sensationalist. It would help if some of the crap got cut. Still, with HDTV's continuously falling in price, and not everyone being a fan of downloads, there's still a market for Bluray. Some people just want a hard copy. I know, as I've done it both way as a buyer of anime as well as a fansub watcher. It's like how I always know where my Eva tapes are, but contently loose track of my fansub backups. I'll take a professional disc to something buried on my HDD any day. Even if it does fail, I'll be picking them up while I can. It's also a shame SACD or DVD Audio never trumped CDs due to poor planning. Instead we're stuck with even worse sounding mp3s. Same as how blank VHS tapes and rolls of film aren't leaving Walgreens anytime soon (I still prefer the format to the lousy DVRs my parents have). 

Shame S-VHS never took off. JVC really blew that one, so Sony has an example of what not to do.

While I've been enjoying my handful of Blurays for my capable laptop, and HD fansubs, my VHS collection and VCRs are going nowhere anytime soon. V, if you don't want any of the good stuff, send it my way. The one good thing about DVDs for VHS is that it drove the price down. ^_^


--- On Tue, 12/30/08, Codename V <v at evageeks.org> wrote:

> From: Codename V <v at evageeks.org>
> Subject: [EVA] The VHS era is officially over. Things have changed....forever.
> To: evangelion at eva.onegeek.org
> Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 9:04 AM
> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-vhs-tapes22-2008dec22,0,5852342.story
> 
> The last company that actually still produced VHS tapes has
> made its last
> shipment and is discontinuing production.
> 
> The VHS format is officially obsolete.
> 
> The last new movie to actually come out on VHS was in 2006
> (it was "A
> History of Violence").
> 
> VHS has been replaced by DVD, which itself is on the cusp
> of being phased
> out for Blu-Ray over the next decade (arguably, even
> Blu-Ray has to
> compete with Digital Distribution and New Media...)
> 
> Nonetheless, VHS is now as dead and dated as Beta.
> 
> The era of finding poorly fansubbed DVDs shipped to the USA
> from Japan, or
> made at fanclubs, is over.
> 
> Indeed, my own anime club is throwing out the literally
> hundreds of VHS
> tapes they have had handed down from previous members since
> the 1980's;
> they've got a VHS-to-DVD converter and they're
> making copies of the ones
> that still actually play (and throwing out the ones that
> actually don't
> work anymore).  Also, at a different scifi club, knowing
> that I like
> anime, without asking in early December they handed me a
> bag of half a
> dozen VHS anime tapes they were throwing out.  And I mean
> good stuff like
> "Armitage III", not obscure stuff.  Well, I
> suppose now these "early 90's,
> you might have watched it poorly dubbed and badly edited on
> Scifi Channel"
> anime movies are now themselves "obscure".  Ghost
> in the Shell at least
> gets re-released because it was so iconic.
> 
> but I digress....
> 
> The days when everyone watched Evangelion by having to hunt
> for fansubbed
> VHS tapes at anime conventions (often simply being unable
> to find a
> complete set) are now a thing of the distant past.  The
> days when most of
> our knowledge about the series was based on a handful of
> fansubs....based
> of a Chinese bootleg?!...owned and analyzed by a small
> handful....are
> over.  These days, new fans can easily just buy a box set
> with decent subs
> and at-least-functional dubs.  Or they can just download
> high-quality
> fansubs if they're truly obsessed.
> 
> But the "hunting for amateur fansubbed VHS tapes of
> Evangelion" days are
> long over.
> 
> "Things have changed...forever.  There is no going
> back"
> 
> 
> -- V
> 
> "I'm pleased to meet you and I hope you guessed my
> name, but what's
> puzzling you, is the nature of my game"
> -- 
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