THE death of the video recorder comes a step closer today as the country's largest electrical goods retail chain announces that it is stopping selling them.

Dixons is to phase out video cassette recorders (VCRs) after more than a quarter of a century, to concentrate on their successor, the DVD.

The move signals the beginning of the end of VHS (video home system), the technology that revolutionised viewing habits around the world.

But the humble VCR, with its clunky tapes and habit of chewing up precious recordings, has fallen victim to the speed and superior quality of DVD.

Dixons says demand for video cassette recorders has fallen dramatically since the mid-1990s.

Meanwhile, sales of DVD players have grown seven-fold in the past five years.

The final nail in the coffin for VCRs is the price of DVD players, from as little as £25.

Dixons expects to sell its remaining stock of VCRs by Christmas.

John Mewett, marketing director at Dixons, said: ''We're saying goodbye to one of the most important products in the history of consumer technology.

''The video recorder has been with us for a generation and many of us have grown up with the joys and the occasional frustrations of tape-based recording."

The first VCR went on sale at Dixons in 1978, priced £798.75 the equivalent of more than £3,000 today.

The early 1980s saw a battle between VHS and its main competitor, Sony's Betamax.

VHS eventually won, largely because it was the format favoured by rental shops.

Dixons saw sales of VCRs peak in 1993 and by 2002 almost 90 per cent of UK households owned at least one.

Andy Hain, a VCR collector who runs a website dedicated to the machines, said: It's hard to imagine today, but once upon a time you had a simple choice: you could stay home and watch TV or you could go out, which meant missing your favourite programmes.

''But gradually, the VCR crept into our lives until it was hard to imagine life without them.''