Formats never truly die, but their eras always have a few painful stages of decline. First, there's the arrival of a promising new competitor, then its steady rise, which is invariably followed by a mourning period and the final purging of last-gen products from the market. The last stage of obsolescence for of the long-presumed-dead format is upon us: JVC has announced that production of their single remaining player will stop immediately.

The JVC player was probably only ever intended to service old, supplementary collections of tapes, but my romantic side hopes that at least one person will see this news and think "Aww, shucks, I guess it's finally.time to get one of those Dee-Vee-Dee players." As a comfort to those people, JVC (like others) will continue to offer a few combination players, and at least plans on selling its standalone VCRs until inventory runs out. [TradingMarkets via BBG]

Send an email to John Herrman, the author of this post, at jherrman@gizmodo.com.