The VCR A Bison?

Does anyone remember a time before digital when audio was recorded on vinyl, reel-to-reel, 8-track, or cassette tape? While record companies still print selected records in vinyl, all other formats are pretty much extinct in music stores across the world.

As for video, the VCR once had a stranglehold in the home recording marketplace, but because of advances in technology, it's survival is going the way of the buffalo. The digital video recorder and DVD recorder are threatening a VCRs value, infringing on its once sacred one-stop playback/record territory, and pushing it to the brink of home electronics extinction. Because consumers no longer need to record on VHS, what's the use of a VCR anymore?

Luckily for the VCR, the promise of an all digital world hasn't caught up with reality. Many people, including your About.com guide to TV, need a VCR to record their favorite program or sporting event, play an old movie owned on VHS but not worth paying another $10 for the DVD, and make quick copies of home movies for the family.

Manufacturers are trying to give the VCR a competitive makeover by digitizing new models, and offering much-too-expensive HD-recording on high end models. But that isn't enough.

A few years from now the stand alone VCR might be extinct, but a VCR-DVD combo gives the VCR a hopeful pasture to record and play video for sometime because as long as people own VHS, they'll find a way to own a VCR. While their buffalo cousins have made strides in population growth, the future isn't as bright for the VCR because at some point it will almost certainly succumb to the ease and practicality of digital recording, transfer, and playback.