Nz17
02-15-2025, 06:22 AM
Love Your Old DVDs, Vinyl Records, and Game Consoles? You're Not Alone.
Millions of us also hang on to cassettes, film cameras, and other old physical media, CR's survey shows
James K. Willcox
By James K. Willcox
Multimedia Content Specialist, Home and Tech
February 8, 2025
collage of various technology that was commonly used over past decades
Despite a dizzying array of new digital devices, a good number of us still enjoy using older analog tech.
Photo Illustration: Klawe Rzeczy
It all started when my wife came down to my music room and described my rack of old electronics gear as “your island of misfit toys.” We then had a lively discussion about why I had such a fondness for stuff most people would have abandoned years ago.
MORE ON VIDEO & AUDIO
How to Set Up a Turntable
Best TV Antennas
CR's TV Ratings & Buying Guide
CR's Printer Ratings & Buying Guide
To be fair, she had a point. My favorite acoustic guitar is a 1941 Gibson, and my Telecaster electric guitar was built in 1967, a year later than the Fender amp it plugs into. I still listen to vinyl records and CDs, and watch movies on DVDs and Blu-ray discs. (We won’t even get into my collection of SACD and DVD-Audio discs.)
That conversation got me wondering how many other people were still using audio, video, and home office products that most of us would consider antiquated. To get the answer, the Consumer Reports survey team agreed to include some questions about old technology in a nationally representative survey (PDF) that was fielded in May 2024 to 2,022 adult U.S. residents.
Here’s what we found.
Audio Formats We Still Love
Audio gear tends to age fairly well, mainly because you can still connect many devices the way you’ve always done. For instance, I still own a Marantz receiver from the mid-1970s, and a McIntosh tube amp and pre-amp tuner that are both a decade older. Other than occasionally needing a new tube here and there, they still work fine. That’s not the case with a fairly expensive A/V preamp I own that’s been relegated to that misfit rack because it has component-video, rather than HDMI, connections, so it won’t connect to any newer TV.
When it comes to audio formats, however, things can change a bit quicker. Our survey finds that despite the availability of streaming music services such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify, nearly half of us (45 percent of Americans) still listen to CDs. About 1 in 5 use vinyl records, a number I frankly thought would be higher given that in 2022 vinyl outsold CDs in the U.S.—for the first time since 1987.
Audio Media Americans Have Used at Home in the Past Year
CDs
45%
Vinyl records
21%
Digital music player like an iPod or a Zune
20%
Cassette tapes
15%
Eight-track tapes
5%
Reel-to-reel tape
4%
None of these
41%
Source: May 2024 nationally representative CR survey of 2,022 U.S. adults.
Respondents could select all that applied.
About the same percentage of people continue using a digital music player such as an iPod or a Zune—and yes, you can count me among them. (A 160-gigabyte iPod Classic’s playlist of AC/DC and Rush tunes still gets my heart pumping at the gym.) Cassette tapes—which Billboard says are making a comeback, with sales jumping 440 percent over the past decade—are being used by 15 percent of us.
The results aren’t as encouraging for anyone hoping for an eight-track or reel-to-reel tape resurgence. There’s a collector’s market for these formats, but 5 percent of Americans listen to eight-tracks, while just 4 percent of us are still giving reel-to-reel tapes a spin.
About 4 in 10 Americans hadn’t used any of these older formats in the past year.
Video Gear We Can't Quit
With the advent of streaming video services, many industry pundits predicted the quick demise of physical media. In fact, many big retailers, including Best Buy and Target, stopped carrying DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and Netflix shut down its DVD-by-mail rental business back in 2023. But like zombies in a George Romero movie, these formats have been hard to kill off entirely.
Case in point: Almost half of us are still watching DVDs and Blu-rays. Personally, I remain a big fan for a few reasons. First, they have better picture and audio quality—requiring less video compression than streaming services, and supporting lossless audio formats that can match the studio masters. They also let you watch movies without an internet connection. Plus, you don’t have to worry that they’ll disappear from a streaming service because the studio struck a new deal with a competitor.
Despite the demise of Blockbuster and most video rental chains more than a decade ago, 15 percent of Americans still watch VHS tapes. And the format is making a bit of a comeback, thanks to a community of “tapeheads” and collectors posting about their love for VHS on social media.
There’s also an active community around classic video game consoles and games, with 14 percent of Americans playing game systems introduced before 2000. (Unsurprising nerd alert: I still have my Super NES system, which was launched back in 1991, though it’s been a while since I’ve fired it up.)
Visual Media Americans Have Used
at Home in the Past Year
DVDs or Blu-rays
49%
VHS tapes
15%
Classic video game systems
14%
Film camera
9%
Video camera or camcorder
9%
TiVo or other digital video recorder
4%
Film slide projector
4%
Laserdisc
3%
None of these
40%
Source: May 2024 nationally representative CR survey of 2,022 U.S. adults.
Respondents could select all that applied.
About 1 in 10 people still shoot with a film camera, and roughly the same number use a video camera or camcorder. Perhaps that’s one reason there’s a decent business in converting videos from these older formats to digital images.
Thanks to the widespread availability of cable boxes with built-in recorders and services that offer cloud-based DVRs, only a few of us still use a separate digital recorder such as a TiVo, which was once so dominant. (Remember when “TiVo-ing” a show was synonymous with recording it?) Just a few Americans now use a slide projector, presumably for showing off trips and family vacations.
The percentage of those who still watched laserdiscs, which are record-sized video discs that look like a giant CD, is about the same. For a brief period of time laserdiscs were the gold standard of audio/video quality; they boasted higher-quality analog video than VHS tapes, plus the ability to include digital soundtracks. (Yes, back in the day I had a laserdisc player and a decent collection of movies.)
About 40 percent of us said they hadn’t used any of the things we asked about in the past year.
Home Office Stuff That's Still Around
With more of us working from home at least part-time, we thought it would be interesting to see how many people still used legacy home office devices. About a quarter of Americans still use a landline phone at home, according to our survey. I still have one myself, but just because my internet bill would actually be $5 a month higher if I dropped it. (We do like that it still works whenever the power goes out, though.)
While downloading software has now become the norm, 15 percent of Americans have used a CD to install a program or to back up data in the past year.
Before there was email, many of us sent faxes; 11 percent of Americans still do, while 7 percent have used a physical answering machine in the past year.
Tom Hanks has a high-profile fondness for the clickety-clack virtues of old-school typewriters, but he’s in a small minority: Only 4 percent of Americans still use one, about the same small number who continue to rely on a Rolodex for keeping contacts, or a microcassette recorder for recording interviews or messages. Even fewer folks use a floppy disc—wait, you can still buy floppy discs?—or a pager, which if I recall correctly was an alphanumeric messaging device mainly used by doctors, self-important businesspeople, and drug dealers.
Only 2 percent still rely on that former bane of my existence, the dot-matrix printer.
More than half of Americans apparently use none of these devices. I imagine my wife would tell you that they, and their partners, are happier for it.
James K. Willcox
James K. Willcox
James K. Willcox leads Consumer Reports’ coverage of TVs, streaming media services and devices, broadband internet service, and the digital divide. He's also a homeowner covering several home improvement categories, including power washers and decking. A veteran journalist, Willcox has written for Business Week, Cargo, Maxim, Men’s Journal, Popular Science, Rolling Stone, Sound & Vision, and others. At home, he’s often bent over his workbench building guitars or cranking out music on his 7.2-channel home theater sound system.
© 2025 Consumer Reports, Inc.
Source:
https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/media-formats/holding-on-to-physical-media-a3747629925/
Millions of us also hang on to cassettes, film cameras, and other old physical media, CR's survey shows
James K. Willcox
By James K. Willcox
Multimedia Content Specialist, Home and Tech
February 8, 2025
collage of various technology that was commonly used over past decades
Despite a dizzying array of new digital devices, a good number of us still enjoy using older analog tech.
Photo Illustration: Klawe Rzeczy
It all started when my wife came down to my music room and described my rack of old electronics gear as “your island of misfit toys.” We then had a lively discussion about why I had such a fondness for stuff most people would have abandoned years ago.
MORE ON VIDEO & AUDIO
How to Set Up a Turntable
Best TV Antennas
CR's TV Ratings & Buying Guide
CR's Printer Ratings & Buying Guide
To be fair, she had a point. My favorite acoustic guitar is a 1941 Gibson, and my Telecaster electric guitar was built in 1967, a year later than the Fender amp it plugs into. I still listen to vinyl records and CDs, and watch movies on DVDs and Blu-ray discs. (We won’t even get into my collection of SACD and DVD-Audio discs.)
That conversation got me wondering how many other people were still using audio, video, and home office products that most of us would consider antiquated. To get the answer, the Consumer Reports survey team agreed to include some questions about old technology in a nationally representative survey (PDF) that was fielded in May 2024 to 2,022 adult U.S. residents.
Here’s what we found.
Audio Formats We Still Love
Audio gear tends to age fairly well, mainly because you can still connect many devices the way you’ve always done. For instance, I still own a Marantz receiver from the mid-1970s, and a McIntosh tube amp and pre-amp tuner that are both a decade older. Other than occasionally needing a new tube here and there, they still work fine. That’s not the case with a fairly expensive A/V preamp I own that’s been relegated to that misfit rack because it has component-video, rather than HDMI, connections, so it won’t connect to any newer TV.
When it comes to audio formats, however, things can change a bit quicker. Our survey finds that despite the availability of streaming music services such as Amazon Music, Apple Music, and Spotify, nearly half of us (45 percent of Americans) still listen to CDs. About 1 in 5 use vinyl records, a number I frankly thought would be higher given that in 2022 vinyl outsold CDs in the U.S.—for the first time since 1987.
Audio Media Americans Have Used at Home in the Past Year
CDs
45%
Vinyl records
21%
Digital music player like an iPod or a Zune
20%
Cassette tapes
15%
Eight-track tapes
5%
Reel-to-reel tape
4%
None of these
41%
Source: May 2024 nationally representative CR survey of 2,022 U.S. adults.
Respondents could select all that applied.
About the same percentage of people continue using a digital music player such as an iPod or a Zune—and yes, you can count me among them. (A 160-gigabyte iPod Classic’s playlist of AC/DC and Rush tunes still gets my heart pumping at the gym.) Cassette tapes—which Billboard says are making a comeback, with sales jumping 440 percent over the past decade—are being used by 15 percent of us.
The results aren’t as encouraging for anyone hoping for an eight-track or reel-to-reel tape resurgence. There’s a collector’s market for these formats, but 5 percent of Americans listen to eight-tracks, while just 4 percent of us are still giving reel-to-reel tapes a spin.
About 4 in 10 Americans hadn’t used any of these older formats in the past year.
Video Gear We Can't Quit
With the advent of streaming video services, many industry pundits predicted the quick demise of physical media. In fact, many big retailers, including Best Buy and Target, stopped carrying DVDs and Blu-ray discs, and Netflix shut down its DVD-by-mail rental business back in 2023. But like zombies in a George Romero movie, these formats have been hard to kill off entirely.
Case in point: Almost half of us are still watching DVDs and Blu-rays. Personally, I remain a big fan for a few reasons. First, they have better picture and audio quality—requiring less video compression than streaming services, and supporting lossless audio formats that can match the studio masters. They also let you watch movies without an internet connection. Plus, you don’t have to worry that they’ll disappear from a streaming service because the studio struck a new deal with a competitor.
Despite the demise of Blockbuster and most video rental chains more than a decade ago, 15 percent of Americans still watch VHS tapes. And the format is making a bit of a comeback, thanks to a community of “tapeheads” and collectors posting about their love for VHS on social media.
There’s also an active community around classic video game consoles and games, with 14 percent of Americans playing game systems introduced before 2000. (Unsurprising nerd alert: I still have my Super NES system, which was launched back in 1991, though it’s been a while since I’ve fired it up.)
Visual Media Americans Have Used
at Home in the Past Year
DVDs or Blu-rays
49%
VHS tapes
15%
Classic video game systems
14%
Film camera
9%
Video camera or camcorder
9%
TiVo or other digital video recorder
4%
Film slide projector
4%
Laserdisc
3%
None of these
40%
Source: May 2024 nationally representative CR survey of 2,022 U.S. adults.
Respondents could select all that applied.
About 1 in 10 people still shoot with a film camera, and roughly the same number use a video camera or camcorder. Perhaps that’s one reason there’s a decent business in converting videos from these older formats to digital images.
Thanks to the widespread availability of cable boxes with built-in recorders and services that offer cloud-based DVRs, only a few of us still use a separate digital recorder such as a TiVo, which was once so dominant. (Remember when “TiVo-ing” a show was synonymous with recording it?) Just a few Americans now use a slide projector, presumably for showing off trips and family vacations.
The percentage of those who still watched laserdiscs, which are record-sized video discs that look like a giant CD, is about the same. For a brief period of time laserdiscs were the gold standard of audio/video quality; they boasted higher-quality analog video than VHS tapes, plus the ability to include digital soundtracks. (Yes, back in the day I had a laserdisc player and a decent collection of movies.)
About 40 percent of us said they hadn’t used any of the things we asked about in the past year.
Home Office Stuff That's Still Around
With more of us working from home at least part-time, we thought it would be interesting to see how many people still used legacy home office devices. About a quarter of Americans still use a landline phone at home, according to our survey. I still have one myself, but just because my internet bill would actually be $5 a month higher if I dropped it. (We do like that it still works whenever the power goes out, though.)
While downloading software has now become the norm, 15 percent of Americans have used a CD to install a program or to back up data in the past year.
Before there was email, many of us sent faxes; 11 percent of Americans still do, while 7 percent have used a physical answering machine in the past year.
Tom Hanks has a high-profile fondness for the clickety-clack virtues of old-school typewriters, but he’s in a small minority: Only 4 percent of Americans still use one, about the same small number who continue to rely on a Rolodex for keeping contacts, or a microcassette recorder for recording interviews or messages. Even fewer folks use a floppy disc—wait, you can still buy floppy discs?—or a pager, which if I recall correctly was an alphanumeric messaging device mainly used by doctors, self-important businesspeople, and drug dealers.
Only 2 percent still rely on that former bane of my existence, the dot-matrix printer.
More than half of Americans apparently use none of these devices. I imagine my wife would tell you that they, and their partners, are happier for it.
James K. Willcox
James K. Willcox
James K. Willcox leads Consumer Reports’ coverage of TVs, streaming media services and devices, broadband internet service, and the digital divide. He's also a homeowner covering several home improvement categories, including power washers and decking. A veteran journalist, Willcox has written for Business Week, Cargo, Maxim, Men’s Journal, Popular Science, Rolling Stone, Sound & Vision, and others. At home, he’s often bent over his workbench building guitars or cranking out music on his 7.2-channel home theater sound system.
© 2025 Consumer Reports, Inc.
Source:
https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/media-formats/holding-on-to-physical-media-a3747629925/