SO farewell to the video player. Dixons, the country's largest electrical chain, is no longer to stock the humble recorder, now eclipsed by the DVD.

Once upon a technologically-illiterate time, you had to choose between watching television or going out, but the video changed all that.

You could set the video, head out and on your return attempt to watch the programme on a chewed-up video tape. That's if you could master programming the wretched machine in the first place.

One thing galls, however: DVD players may now be cheap as computer chips, but DVD recorders are still a lot dearer than video players. Are we being conned again?

Updated: 12:07 Monday, November 22, 2004