The demise of the VCR

Most of us thought the VCR had died somewhere along the way, and so when the news of its demise came as recently as last month, we were caught by surprise. The clunky, ancient relic from the ‘90s that some of us remember fondly was still being manufactured until last month. Even then, the reason the company cited for ceasing production was difficulty in the procurement of certain components, not the lack of demand. In fact, last year the company manufactured some 750,000 VCRs.

Prior to laptops and smartphones, we used this piece of technology to make ourselves laugh and cry. Until the advent of the personal computer, the VCR and VHS together, were the closest things we had to a time machine.

Almost as soon as I quietly questioned why, in the age of BitTorrent and Netflix, would anyone want to invest in a VCR, I remembered the Sony Walkman that I had bought not long before the world started gearing up for the Y2K apocalypse (which never happened). I recently found the portable audio cassette player in storage and it reminded me of my favourite bands and their music — music that formed the soundtrack of my teenage years, music that is permanently imbued with memories of back then.

And that is probably why, well into the 2010s, some people were still buying new VCRs. They probably owned VHS tapes that could only work with the older technology. Just imagine the number of weddings, all through the ‘80s and ‘90s, that are documented on the VHS video cassette format. Then there are the films and TV shows that people captured from television broadcasts — some live — over more than two decades. Political speeches, interviews, live performances, news reports, cooking shows, and concerts.

It may seem a bit absurd now, but to watch a movie back then, one had to go to a physical store made of brick and mortar, peruse an album containing mini-posters of films and maybe ask the video store clerk for a recommendation. Choices were limited; you couldn’t just find a torrent file for what you fancied watching that evening. The process definitely demanded more of us, and perhaps we valued the experience more because of the extra effort and investment.

As The Express Tribune’s Life and Style Editor Rafay Mahmood recently commented, “the rental video industry during the ‘90s in Pakistan was cinema for a generation that did not have actual cinemas to go to.” The VCR, along with VHS, are responsible for introducing most of us who grew up in the ‘90s to both Hollywood and Bollywood. Let’s hope that whatever remains of this treasure trove is digitised before it hits landfill.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 2^nd, 2016.