What happened to the LP speed on VCRs?

[ShelleyLevene]

I don't think anyone in the last five years has put out a VCR that has the LP mode.


I have bought 3 Sonys, 2 JVCs, Go VCR, and a Toshiba in the past 5 years and they only have the SP and SLP modes.


When did the LP speed on VCRs go extinct?

[renaldow]

Because LP mode on different models of VCRs didn't work together. Record a SP or SLP tape on any of your VCRs and you can play them back just fine in pretty much any other VCR. But for some reason LP mode didn't work that way. Each player did it its' own way or used some proprietary technology to enhance the pic so that if you tried playing it back in another brand of VCR it either was unplayable or looked like crap. Used to trade tapes with friends years ago and this was always a problem.

[bboisvert]

Yep, what renaldow said. I don't know the technical reasons behind it, but LP was always sketchy. My first VCR (late 1970s) was SP/LP only, so I had a ton of LP tapes. When I went to replace that VCR, I had a hell of a time finding one that would play the tapes well. I finally ended up dubbing the ones I wanted to keep and dumping most of them.

And, honestly, there didn't seem to be much reason for LP once SLP was developed...

[PJAceto]

Same here. I had a bunch of LP tapes from a Panasonic VCR. My current Sony does not record in LP mode but it will play LP tapes OK.