Why U.S.A. brands didn't made home V.C.R. using U.S.A. made components.

[Telecolor 3007]

I don't know about pro-V.C.R.'s, but the home made one where rebadged Asian ones. In Europe some brands used most or to some extent Europe made components.

[nasadowsk]

Cost of setting up an assembly line.

Likely not able to compete on price anyway.

Licensing fees.

The typical anti-Japanese sentiment that was still previlant in the US at the time especially with older people (so selling a VCR based on Japanese technology wasn't going to be popular - and US manufacturers can never agree on a standard for anything).

Dealing with union crap.

Magnovox was owned by Phillips by then.

Zenith was rapidly fading.

GE wanted out of consumer electronics.

Motorola sold out to Panasonic...

RCA's fixation on CED wasn't helping either.

If Zenith, RCA, etc could have sat down and hammered out something viable before Betamax hit the shores, and ran with it, there might have been a chance. But given NTSC was barely 20 years old by then, and there was still a good amount of 'bad blood' between RCA and everyone else...

[dishdude]

The US got out of producing electronics in the 70's. I find it odd that TVs held on for as long as they did. The last consumer electronic product that was designed and built in the USA was the CED VideoDisc player.

[ESigma25]

Originally Posted by dishdude

The US got out of producing electronics in the 70's. I find it odd that TVs held on for as long as they did. The last consumer electronic product that was designed and built in the USA was the CED VideoDisc player.

I'm not sure what you mean by this, as RCA and Phillips seem to have maintained US TV plants until at least the late 1980s.

[Electronic M]

Some of the Asian companies did set up plants here in the US but I believe most were just assembly.

It's possible some of the US assembled decks may have had some US made parts, but the Japanese companies usually really didn't like using anything that wasn't japanese made so it's unlikely they used US made stuff.

We did have some home grown consumer VTR formats like cartrivision but our major broadcast VTR makers Ampex and RCA didn't really have much interest in making a consumer tape product that the middle class could afford.

If you look at the suit Hollywood had against Sony you see a reason why VTR development interest in the US wasn't as high as it could have been... nobody wanted to deal with the Hollywood goons.

[pgnl]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

In Europe some brands used most or to some extent Europe made components.

If this is true it wasn’t for very long. Certainly in Britain, initially virtually every VCR was made in the far east, apart from maybe a few Philips and Grundig (which were similar) in the early days.

Then the major Japanese brands started manufacturing VCRs in Europe, Panasonic, JVC & Toshiba in Germany, Sony in France, Sharp & Sanyo in the UK. Most also manufactured TVs in Europe. Sony in the UK and Spain, Panasonic, JVC, Toshiba, Sanyo & Sharp in the UK. Then LCDs came in and production was shifted to Eastern Europe or back to the Far East. Sony UK in Bridgend produces professional video cameras to this day, along with Raspberry Pi circuit boards….

As for individual components, heaven knows where they were made, I would suspect in the main they were imported from the far east to maintain quality control.

[ChrisW6ATV]

The first home VCR format in the USA was Cartrivision, in the early 1970s, and it was indeed made here. But, it failed. By the time Beta and VHS became available, the switch to Japanese-made electronic equipment (especially anything other than TV sets) by all major USA companies was mostly or entirely complete.

Since VCRs were a US$1000 item when they first came out, it would have been a major gamble to attempt to start making them in the USA, with any hope of matching the Japanese prices. It was vastly easier and cheaper to just ask Sony and Panasonic to make USA-brand versions of their products.

People in the USA have always been far more interested in the lowest prices for things than they ever have been for either quality or loyalty to locally-made products.

[pgnl]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

People in the USA have always been far more interested in the lowest prices for things than they ever have been for either quality or loyalty to locally-made products.

Not just in the USA, it’s the same in the UK. Germany certainly has a more loyal market and a market more interested in upmarket products than the UK.

But ultimately, US and European electronic manufacturing was laid waste by the Japanese, by being better at manufacturing and the requirement for ever reducing prices. Then come the mid nineties, the Japanese Electronic Industry was laid waste by a combination of digitisation of video and music, the internet and the Chinese……

The Japanese TV, VCR and Hi-Fi industry was vast in the eighties all gone, no one can rest on their laurels.

[KentTeffeteller]

Would you have been willing to spend Broadcast 2" Quadruplex money for one? Or even 1" Type C money? USA manufacturing, labor, and more costs money.

[old_tv_nut]

No one has mentioned Japanese dumping. Products were sold in the U.S. for less than in Japan, there were blatant illegal kickback schemes with major U.S. retailers, and the Nixon administration (and others) turning a blind eye with an understanding that the US will support Japan industry if Japan supports US politics in Asia. After many years of futile trade lawsuits, Japan Inc. suffered penalties of a few hundred thousand, a pittance compared to the millions in damage to the US consumer electronics industry. In the lawsuits, the US manufacturers were told "you're just trying to shore up prices" when their suits plainly asked only to cease dumping that was clearly against international trade law.

[MadMan]

Well RCA was the biggest US electronics company at the time, but they were already fading by then. They probably saw the writing on the wall, and they were heavily invested in the CED video system. They contracted out to a Japanese company to do VHS mostly because they were already over-extended on other things and were no longer the technology powerhouse they once were.

[Plumbicon]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

I don't know about pro-V.C.R.'s, but the home made one where rebadged Asian ones. In Europe some brands used most or to some extent Europe made components.

The only consumer type home video recorders using local (European) parts and assembly were the PHILIPS (and affiliated GRUNDIG) VCR and (later)
V2000 formats. These were a commercial failure, soon to be superseded by the very successful asian VHS and BETAMAX formats, and all of these used exclusively asian design and parts, even when sold under (re)branded European brands.

[KentTeffeteller]

Originally Posted by ESigma25

I'm not sure what you mean by this, as RCA and Phillips seem to have maintained US TV plants until at least the late 1980s.

But RCA did not actually manufacture any consumer VCR themselves. They purchased them from other vendors (as OEM items). Early models being built for RCA by Matsushita/Panasonic and Hitachi in Japan. Philips/Magnavox VCR models sold in the USA were built for them usually by Matsushita/Panasonic,

The only RCA Video Tape equipment ever built in the USA, and USA designed, was by RCA Broadcast and 2" Quadruplex open reel.

[KentTeffeteller]

Originally Posted by old_tv_nut

No one has mentioned Japanese dumping. Products were sold in the U.S. for less than in Japan, there were blatant illegal kickback schemes with major U.S. retailers, and the Nixon administration (and others) turning a blind eye with an understanding that the US will support Japan industry if Japan supports US politics in Asia. After many years of futile trade lawsuits, Japan Inc. suffered penalties of a few hundred thousand, a pittance compared to the millions in damage to the US consumer electronics industry. In the lawsuits, the US manufacturers were told "you're just trying to shore up prices" when their suits plainly asked only to cease dumping that was clearly against international trade law.

Yes, those exact reasons. And also this cost us USA manufacturing, and eventually also with it the USA electronics service industry.

[ESigma25]

Originally Posted by KentTeffeteller

But RCA did not actually manufacture any consumer VCR themselves. They purchased them from other vendors (as OEM items). Early models being built for RCA by Matsushita/Panasonic and Hitachi in Japan. Philips/Magnavox VCR models sold in the USA were built for them usually by Matsushita/Panasonic,

The only RCA Video Tape equipment ever built in the USA, and USA designed, was by RCA Broadcast and 2" Quadruplex open reel.

I mean, I never said they did, I was just responding to the "companies stopped manufacturing electronics in the US in the 1970s" comment.