BB FANS

Having just ordered more blank discs I'm wondering how much long Video and Audio cassettes will be around ?

What does the average video cassette cost these days ? 90p - £1 ?
Just ordered 100 DVD+R for 12.2P + VAT (14.3P) each. I know you can buy cheaper but you need to buy 500 or 600 then it's about 9.4P each.

The last time I bought any video cassettes would be going back a couple of BB series and then in packs of 10 from Argos at 89P each.

As for audio cassettes I don't know the last time I bought any but I ordered 100 x52 speed CDRs for 8.5P + VAT (9.99P) each.

It used to be that separate DVD recorders were many hundreds but now even the supermarkets have them for under £100 so price wise they are competing with video recorders.

Audio cd recorders never appeared in great quantities so the prices always held high ,but a lot of the MP3 players also have record and you can always use your PC to record.

Also more and more Hifi's and portable audio are appearing without cassettes.

A chap a work a couple of weeks back asked where he could get Chrome Audio Cassettes without going down to London. Local shops IF they sell cassettes only have Ferric. All I could tell him was to get a copy of What Hifi.

It's a bit like trying to buy SVHS Video cassettes ,easiest way to to use a decent VHS and add the hole to fool the recorder in thinking it's a SVHS. Works a treat with my Panasonic AG-450 camera.

Or if you had spent a fortune on a DVHS (Digital VHS) recorder try finding any where selling the JVC cassettes. Record quality it excellent offering 15 hours on one cassette but except for maybe studio work not worth their money. I've only ever seen and played with one and it was about the size and weight of an old Video 2000 and something like £1500 !

So how much longer do you think magnetic media like cassettes will be around ?

err...you'll probably always be able to buy from specialist online retailers.
Sure, mainstream shops have almost entirely stopped selling tape stuff, but who needs real shops.

Shop online, I have no doubts that in the year 2050, if you wanna buy a few mag' tapes for your ancient museum piece/antique...you'd be quite able to.

There will be millions of those VCRs circulating for decades to come...they'll probably remain cheap too.
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As an aside...
by Dec 2006..a company is planning on selling a disc reader/writer than can cram anything from 300 to 1.6 Terabytes of data on a DVD sized disc.

Forget blu-ray and HD-dvd. Its possible that holographic disc will take over as the eventual global format for movies.
see : http://www.inphase-technologies.com

Calrissian: 0100110