Dixons kills off the video star

BRITAIN's biggest electrical retailer, Dixons, is to stop selling video cassette recorders after a slump in sales.

Dixons has decided to phase out the VCR after more than a quarter of a century to concentrate on its successor, the DVD.

With its bulky tapes and habit of chewing up precious recordings, the VHS (video home system) has fallen victim to the speed and superior quality of the DVD (digital versatile disc).

Since the mid-1990s demand for VCRs has fallen dramatically. In contrast, sales of DVD players have grown sevenfold over the past five years and now outstrip sales of VCRs by 40 to one.

Price has been an important factor. DVD players can be bought from as little as £25 and the cost of DVD player/recorders is dropping to a level within reach of most consumers.

John Mewett, marketing director at Dixons, said the company expected to sell its remaining stock of VCRs by Christmas.

'We're saying goodbye to one of the most important products in the history of consumer technology,' he said.

'The video recorder has been with us for a generation and many of us have grown up with the joys and the occasional frustrations of tape-based recording.

'We are now entering the digital age and the new DVD technology available represents a step change in picture quality and convenience.'

Sales of the VCR peaked in 1993, with around 200m machines sold worldwide, and by 2002 almost 90% of UK households owned at least one. However, the onset of the new millennium has seen the triumph of the DVD, with its superior digital quality and space-saving discs.

According to Dixons, their most popular DVD player/recorders retail at around £149.99. These can record TV programmes on to disc at a much higher quality than the video cassette could ever provide.

They are still around £100 more expensive than the average video recorder.

For those people who still want to watch their old videos as well as DVDs, most manufacturers offer DVD/video recorder combination machines at a cost of around £100.

The pace of technological change means that even the DVD is facing tough new competition from hard-disk drive recorders. These can store more than 400 hours worth of television programmes and allow owners to record one programme while watching another they recorded earlier. They can also store digital camera photographs and music downloaded from the internet.

Andy Hain, a VCR collector who runs a website dedicated to the machines, said he would be sad to see the VCR go, but admitted its demise was inevitable.

'It's hard to imagine today, but once upon a time you had a simple-choice - you could stay home and watch TV or you could go out, which meant missing your favourite programmes,' he said. 'Gradually the VCR crept into our lives until it was hard to imagine life without them.

'I knew the end was near when I saw shops dropping the price of VHS tapes to get rid of them. By this time next year, if you want to buy a VCR for Christmas, you will have trouble finding one.'

Nevertheless, there is still hope for die-hard fans of VHS or those with tape collections. Currys, the sister company of Dixons, is continuing to sell the machines for the time being and department store John Lewis said it has no plans to phase them out.