VCR backup: did anyone of you really used it?

jman · 13 May 2011, 14:17

Hello,

these days I'm indexing some old VG magazines and I smiled at the advertisements about VCR-based solutions to perform a backup on your Amiga.

Did any of you really used such a kind of backup back in the day? Was it realiable?

cosmicfrog · 13 May 2011, 16:40

I remeber a mate of mine buying it, but as to him using it regularly I think he gave up in the end and brought a bigger HDD

ceedy · 13 May 2011, 16:56

I used to make a few long ago... just a few bits and an OP amp.

Still got a couple lying about..
But Slow!!!!!!. but did work OK used it to backup the BBS.

Yer's my own version ,

Chris

cosmicfrog · 13 May 2011, 17:24

Kewl

fitzsteve · 13 May 2011, 18:15

Lol thats brilliant!

How many MB's could you get on a four hour tape?

E240 lol, takes me back

ceedy · 13 May 2011, 18:50

Quote:

Originally Posted by fitzsteve

Lol thats brilliant!

How many MB's could you get on a four hour tape?

E240 lol, takes me back

Can't remember too long ago..

Paul_s · 13 May 2011, 20:33

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffa1E9k3H4k

and Scotch (3M) still honor the Lifetime Guarantee! (according to a poster on there)

Slayer · 14 May 2011, 05:13

Yes, I used to use it too and only used high quality TDK video cassettes

I still have the hardware etc, not sure if it's my original one however... eg probably got angry with it one day and smashed it LOL

Photon · 21 May 2011, 01:10

Chara' Data sold an interface that worked with any VCR, never used it myself but they sold a few.

haynor · 27 May 2011, 20:44

This system was very popular in Poland. Quite good if you have good tapes and good video recorder. About 1,5 min takes to record one disk (plus pause, sync signal) so on 180 min you have 90 disks.

Anyway it's legacy now. There is not point to used these days.

bippym · 27 May 2011, 20:45

I used the Video Backup System

Was very good until the tapes were chewed in the vcr!!

prowler · 28 May 2011, 01:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by bippym

...until the tapes were chewed in the vcr!!

I just knew someone would say that eventually.

_ThEcRoW · 29 May 2011, 15:00

What was the capacity of these tapes in megabytes?. Just curious, as in the time these were available, i wondered how many data i could store in that tapes. Sadly i didn't have one back in the day.

ceedy · 29 May 2011, 15:06

I always made sure I didn't record at the start of any tape as the first few feet always got wrinkled by the transport mechanism..

@ ThEcRoW

Capacity obivously depended on the number of hours on the video tape ? ..

But approx 1min per mb ( ish)

.

Chris

voyager · 29 May 2011, 21:30

The original page is still online
"There are special backup modes for Amigas with an 68020 or higher CPU (A1200, A2500, A3000, A4000). The first one gives a speed improvement of a factor 2 compared to V1.5, without data compression. The typical thoughput in this case is 85MB per hour, for a total of 340MB per 4-hour video tape! The 68020-compressed mode adds data compression to this, and is up to 3 times as fast as V1.5 (depending on the compression ratio achieved). With 130MB per hour, 520MB will fit on a 4-hour tape! On an 68000 Amiga, the throughput is about 40MB per hour"

Reynolds · 29 May 2011, 21:36

We used it during a period of time around 1995-96. Closely before the CDRom writing became common on Amiga too.

"We" means Amigans in Hungary :P

Allen1 · 29 May 2011, 22:12

My mate had a similar system for the PC a long time ago. It did work but as already mentioned VCR's are great tape chewers so reliability was never something you could expect and then dirty heads or poor quality tapes meant it was more of a Fad thing than anything useful.

mcbpete · 30 May 2011, 18:57

What did it look like if you tried playing back a VHS with backups on it on a TV ?

haynor · 30 May 2011, 19:41

You have to play backups always to search to beginning (sync)

Black and white stripes

brett71 · 30 June 2011, 19:04

My friend and I both had these. He had a proper one, but made a homemade one for me. They worked pretty darn good for a cheap tape backup solution.

Echo · 03 July 2011, 15:56

I had one - did a verify on its first backup and had tons of errors (Sony VCR / Scotch tape) - had a rant with the online store and eventually got a refund.

Went for the more expensive SCSI zip drive which worked a treat for several years - still have it, probably still works

bippym · 03 July 2011, 16:11

Sometimes it was a bit hit and miss.. Having to fast forward to a specific time etc..

Still for the era it was good.

Jope · 03 July 2011, 17:34

Yeh, especially for the poverty stricken teenagers that many of us were. :-)

laffer · 04 July 2011, 08:42

Didn't use that, but a friend of mine (who was a bit older and knew a lot more about how to use an Amiga back then than I did) used this audio sampler quite a lot, to sample various songs.

Anyway, he would sometimes sample a few songs for me, for my Amiga 500 without a harddrive - basically what I got was several *really* low quality tunes spread over several floppies, meaning I had to be careful to switch floppies in time as the songs were playing

amigatv · 26 July 2011, 21:48

I was using that with cheap VHS tapes and player.... it was actualy amazing at just some games, programs wont load...It was classic to store software, you don't use daily.

Magic · 27 July 2011, 03:00

I have the Amiga VCR Backup by Hugo Lyphens (SP?) and it worked great. I also have a prototype PC card that fits on to an ISA slot and does the same thing under Dos. It also works pretty well considering. I just ran across it the other day when I was cleaning up some stuff and this thread reminded me of it

mikele · 27 July 2011, 09:37

vhs tapes seem to be more durable than most of people think. For example my mid 80s video tapes just work fine, while many of my movies on dvds are totally unplayable due to scratches (esp. the ones bought from video rental's) not to mention those cheap cdr's which are unreadable after 10 years or so, despite good physical condition (no scratches).

Predseda · 27 July 2011, 09:46

I have had a friend, who was big Amiga enthusiast and he used to use VBS regularly. He backed up almost every peice of Amiga software he met and his system was very sophisticated - I remember he used some kind of Amiga database (called MIA) to sort his VHS tapes and their content.

13 May 2011, 14:17	#1
jman Registered User Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Italy Posts: 252	VCR backup: did anyone of you really used it? Hello, these days I'm indexing some old VG magazines and I smiled at the advertisements about VCR-based solutions to perform a backup on your Amiga. Did any of you really used such a kind of backup back in the day? Was it realiable?

13 May 2011, 16:40	#2
cosmicfrog The 1 who ribbits Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: leek, Staffs, UK Age: 45 Posts: 3,552	I remeber a mate of mine buying it, but as to him using it regularly I think he gave up in the end and brought a bigger HDD __________________ When in dought RIBBIT .... If it dos`t work hit it with a hammer, if that dos`t work get a bigger hammer.......... Have U scen my sanity Pill`s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . // *This Years Software on Last Years Hardware \\//-- Amiga* --**

13 May 2011, 17:24	#4
cosmicfrog The 1 who ribbits Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: leek, Staffs, UK Age: 45 Posts: 3,552	Kewl __________________ When in dought RIBBIT .... If it dos`t work hit it with a hammer, if that dos`t work get a bigger hammer.......... Have U scen my sanity Pill`s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . // *This Years Software on Last Years Hardware \\//-- Amiga* --**

13 May 2011, 18:15	#5
fitzsteve Professional slacker! Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: Kent, UK Age: 33 Posts: 4,727	Lol thats brilliant! How many MB's could you get on a four hour tape? E240 lol, takes me back __________________ A500+ 4mb SupraRam500xp/SCSI-IDE - A600, ACA630/64, A604, IndiECS - A4000D, Mirage Pro Tower, CSPPC 060/330, Mediator, DenebUSB, ZorRam - A4000D, WarpEngine040, Toccata, DenebUSB, CV64/3D - A1200D, ACA1232/33, IndiAGA MkII - A1200D Magic Pack +ACA1220 - A1200T, 060/PPC330, G-RexPCI, SubwayUSB - CD32 + SX32, IndiMkII - uA1 800mhz My Retr0 Blog

13 May 2011, 20:33	#7
Paul_s Stuck in 1985 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Amigaville Age: 35 Posts: 2,839	http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffa1E9k3H4k and Scotch (3M) still honor the Lifetime Guarantee! (according to a poster on there) __________________ Memotech MX512 with optional Kelly LeBrock barbie doll generator...

13 May 2011, 16:56	#3
ceedy Old-Amiga-Git Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Somerset , in the UK Posts: 175	I used to make a few long ago... just a few bits and an OP amp. Still got a couple lying about.. But Slow!!!!!!. but did work OK used it to backup the BBS. Yer's my own version , Chris

14 May 2011, 05:13	#8
Slayer Amiga Member Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: New Zealand Age: 46 Posts: 668	Yes, I used to use it too and only used high quality TDK video cassettes I still have the hardware etc, not sure if it's my original one however... eg probably got angry with it one day and smashed it LOL

21 May 2011, 01:10	#9
Photon Oldskool Demo Coder Join Date: Nov 2004 Location: Hult / Sweden Age: 41 Posts: 3,674	Chara' Data sold an interface that worked with any VCR, never used it myself but they sold a few. __________________ Henrik. Programs Amiga demos, iPhone apps, websites, etc. A1000/512k - A500 2.0/040@28/4M/.5M slowmem/8M/SCSI/CF - A600 portable II 3.1/ACA630/WiFi/CF - 'A1700' 3.1/68060@80/64M/IDE-Fix Express/CF - etc."The difference between PC and Amiga is that 10yo PCs are worth $0. 20yo Amigas are worth a lot, and Amigas that are only 15yo cost a fortune!" If you like Portal 2, try my >> single player and cooperation maps <<

27 May 2011, 20:44	#10
haynor retro maniac Join Date: May 2002 Location: Tarnobrzeg/Poland Age: 34 Posts: 1,327	This system was very popular in Poland. Quite good if you have good tapes and good video recorder. About 1,5 min takes to record one disk (plus pause, sync signal) so on 180 min you have 90 disks. Anyway it's legacy now. There is not point to used these days. __________________ Amiga 1200; turbo 1230 mk2 (68EC030); 32 Mb Fast; Sandisk Extreme 4Gb, PCMCIA/CF converter

27 May 2011, 20:45	#11
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,132	I used the Video Backup System Was very good until the tapes were chewed in the vcr!!

29 May 2011, 15:00	#13
_ThEcRoW Amiga Geek Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Spain Age: 34 Posts: 851	What was the capacity of these tapes in megabytes?. Just curious, as in the time these were available, i wondered how many data i could store in that tapes. Sadly i didn't have one back in the day.

29 May 2011, 15:06	#14
ceedy Old-Amiga-Git Join Date: Feb 2011 Location: Somerset , in the UK Posts: 175	I always made sure I didn't record at the start of any tape as the first few feet always got wrinkled by the transport mechanism.. @ ThEcRoW Capacity obivously depended on the number of hours on the video tape ? .. But approx 1min per mb ( ish). Chris

29 May 2011, 21:30	#15
voyager The show must go on. Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: Alkmaar Nederland Posts: 65	The original page is still online "There are special backup modes for Amigas with an 68020 or higher CPU (A1200, A2500, A3000, A4000). The first one gives a speed improvement of a factor 2 compared to V1.5, without data compression. The typical thoughput in this case is 85MB per hour, for a total of 340MB per 4-hour video tape! The 68020-compressed mode adds data compression to this, and is up to 3 times as fast as V1.5 (depending on the compression ratio achieved). With 130MB per hour, 520MB will fit on a 4-hour tape! On an 68000 Amiga, the throughput is about 40MB per hour"

29 May 2011, 21:36	#16
Reynolds Alien Breeder Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Szigetszentmiklos / Hungary Age: 35 Posts: 445	We used it during a period of time around 1995-96. Closely before the CDRom writing became common on Amiga too. "We" means Amigans in Hungary :P Last edited by TheCyberDruid; 29 May 2011 at 22:19. Reason: Back to back posts merged. Use the edit function.

29 May 2011, 22:12	#17
Allen1 Registered User Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Blyth England Age: 57 Posts: 630	My mate had a similar system for the PC a long time ago. It did work but as already mentioned VCR's are great tape chewers so reliability was never something you could expect and then dirty heads or poor quality tapes meant it was more of a Fad thing than anything useful.

30 May 2011, 18:57	#18
mcbpete Zone Friend Join Date: Oct 2004 Location: Devon, England Age: 31 Posts: 137	What did it look like if you tried playing back a VHS with backups on it on a TV ? __________________ Constantly talking is not necessarily communicating . . .

30 May 2011, 19:41	#19
haynor retro maniac Join Date: May 2002 Location: Tarnobrzeg/Poland Age: 34 Posts: 1,327	You have to play backups always to search to beginning (sync) Black and white stripes __________________ Amiga 1200; turbo 1230 mk2 (68EC030); 32 Mb Fast; Sandisk Extreme 4Gb, PCMCIA/CF converter

30 June 2011, 19:04	#20
brett71 Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Ames, IA, USA Posts: 156	My friend and I both had these. He had a proper one, but made a homemade one for me. They worked pretty darn good for a cheap tape backup solution.

03 July 2011, 15:56	#21
Echo Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Location: South-West Wales Posts: 382	I had one - did a verify on its first backup and had tons of errors (Sony VCR / Scotch tape) - had a rant with the online store and eventually got a refund. Went for the more expensive SCSI zip drive which worked a treat for several years - still have it, probably still works

03 July 2011, 16:11	#22
bippym Global Moderator Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Derby, UK Age: 37 Posts: 8,132	Sometimes it was a bit hit and miss.. Having to fast forward to a specific time etc.. Still for the era it was good.

03 July 2011, 17:34	#23
Jope - Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Helsinki / Finland Age: 32 Posts: 4,061	Yeh, especially for the poverty stricken teenagers that many of us were. :-) __________________ The X-Copy shrine!

04 July 2011, 08:42	#24
laffer Zone Friend Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Norway Age: 32 Posts: 1,234	Didn't use that, but a friend of mine (who was a bit older and knew a lot more about how to use an Amiga back then than I did) used this audio sampler quite a lot, to sample various songs. Anyway, he would sometimes sample a few songs for me, for my Amiga 500 without a harddrive - basically what I got was several really low quality tunes spread over several floppies, meaning I had to be careful to switch floppies in time as the songs were playing

26 July 2011, 21:48	#25
amigatv Registered User Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Sthm/Sweden Posts: 57	I was using that with cheap VHS tapes and player.... it was actualy amazing at just some games, programs wont load...It was classic to store software, you don't use daily.

27 July 2011, 03:00	#26
Magic Registered User Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: USA Posts: 54	I have the Amiga VCR Backup by Hugo Lyphens (SP?) and it worked great. I also have a prototype PC card that fits on to an ISA slot and does the same thing under Dos. It also works pretty well considering. I just ran across it the other day when I was cleaning up some stuff and this thread reminded me of it

27 July 2011, 09:37	#27
mikele Registered User Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: poland Posts: 211	vhs tapes seem to be more durable than most of people think. For example my mid 80s video tapes just work fine, while many of my movies on dvds are totally unplayable due to scratches (esp. the ones bought from video rental's) not to mention those cheap cdr's which are unreadable after 10 years or so, despite good physical condition (no scratches).

27 July 2011, 09:46	#28
Predseda Puttymoon inhabitant Join Date: Mar 2007 Location: Prague, CZ Age: 35 Posts: 2,400	I have had a friend, who was big Amiga enthusiast and he used to use VBS regularly. He backed up almost every peice of Amiga software he met and his system was very sophisticated - I remember he used some kind of Amiga database (called MIA) to sort his VHS tapes and their content. __________________ Download Downfall AGA for free for your Amiga!

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