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I read an article today about the end of the VHS tapes.  Everyone remembers the VHS tapes, although my soon to be one year old son Kyle  will never get a chance to remember what they were.  Just like the 8-Track, the cassette tape and the record player the VHS tape has finally seen its last days.  Below is a brief part of that article I read from the Los Angeles Times:

Pop culture is finally hitting the eject button on the VHS tape, the once-ubiquitous home-video format that will finish this month as a creaky ghost of Christmas past.

After three decades of steady if unspectacular service, the spinning wheels of the home-entertainment stalwart are slowing to a halt at retail outlets. On a crisp Friday morning in October, the final truckload of VHS tapes rolled out of a Palm Harbor, Fla., warehouse run by Ryan J. Kugler, the last major supplier of the tapes.

“It’s dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt,” said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. “I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I’m done. Anything left in warehouse we’ll just give away or throw away.”

The last major Hollywood movie to be released on VHS was “A History of Violence” in 2006. By that point major retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart were already well on their way to evicting all the VHS tapes from their shelves so the valuable real estate could go to the sleeker and smaller DVDs and, in more recent seasons, the latest upstart, Blu-ray discs. Kugler ended up buying back as much VHS inventory as he could from retailers, distributors and studios; he then sold more than 4 million VHS videotapes over the last two years.

Kugler estimates that 2 million tapes are still sitting on shelves of his clients’ stores across the country, but they are the last analog soldiers in the lost battle against the digital invasion. “I’m not sure a lot of people are going to miss VHS,” he said, “but it’s been good to us.”

If you rewind back to the 1980s, VHS represented a remarkable turning point for the American consumer. For the first time, Hollywood’s classics and its recent hits could be rented and watched at home.

The format was easy to use (although fast-forwarding and rewinding to any particular spot was the worst new-tech irritant since the telephone busy signal) and, of course, the videocassette recorder and blank VHS tapes made it possible to catch up on any missed must-see TV, whether it was “Days of Our Lives” or “Monday Night Football.” Hollywood found that movies also enjoyed a second opening weekend, as viewers throughout the country made Friday night trips to the rental store for new releases.

I have to admit I am really not that sad to see these VHS tapes go.  I have an old VHS tape player sitting in my garage, as well as a box of movies that I am sure I will never watch again.  Even since I got my first DVD player many years ago the VHS kinda got ignored.  I would hate having to rewind or fast forward all the time to get to the good parts in the movie.  The DVD is so much easier, and has a better picture.

The part that kinda scares me is the last part of the article that states:

“The DVD will be obsolete in three or four years, no doubt about it. Everything will be Blu-ray,” Kugler said, anticipating the next resident at his pop culture retirement home. “The days of the DVD are numbered.

So soon the DVD will be gone and replaced with Blu-ray?  I would like to eventually get a blu-ray player, but they are so expensive right now.  I am sure within the next year you will probably be able to purchase one close to one hundred dollars.  Like all new technology prices go down after a while.

So this makes me ponder a new poll question for you all.  Please take a minute to make your response.  As always your comments are welcome as well.