DVD killed the video star

DVD killed the video star: "As Dixons announces to phase out the VCR, Ashley Norris finds few reasons to mourn the end of an era "

So we're not shedding any tears over today's news that Dixons is to phase out selling any more VHS video recorders.

So will I miss our VCR when it finally gets the boot? Probably not. Like anyone of my generation, I am perfectly capable of getting wistful about the first time I saw a pirate movie (for some bizarre reason, for most of us it was almost always ET) on a friend's Betamax video.

Yet I also remember the hours I wasted trying to get my head round impenetrable timer programming systems, and the times I returned home to find the machine had recorded the EastEnders omnibus instead of the football are etched in my memory.

Besides, the VHS sound and picture quality were always rubbish. Once any sane person had seen a DVD, they weren't going to put up with crinkly images and snow-filled screens any more.

Another thing I always hated about VHS tapes is that they were so huge. Ikea bosses must be crying into their Swedish vodka today, knowing that the nation's living rooms will soon no longer require their enormous storage cupboards to house all those videos.

In all fairness, it is amazing that the VHS VCR has managed to cling on for as long as three decades.