VCR backup: did anyone of you really used it? - Page 2

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.

25 January 2019, 02:32

lol, forgive me on this unholy necrosis, but yes, I used those. Less as storage, more as way of getting new stuff. Living at village at end of world, opening new aga tape with 150 games was like opening lost ark! Joy when you finally manage to load game beside damaged point, trading with tapes, ah memories...

Hedeon · 25 January 2019, 05:39

What? Did your head explode or did your face melt?

brett71 · 25 January 2019, 21:40

I used the VBS back in the day as well! It was pretty cheap, easily built, worked fairly well. I can't remember any of my tapes failing.

Gorf · 25 January 2019, 21:54

I never used one of these solutions back than ... actually I first heard of this method long after it was already obsolete.

But since than I wondered about the relatively low data-rate. As far as I understand it is only using a relatively crude black and white encoding. No greyscale and no color information - the soundtrack on the tape is ignored.

It should be possible to store much more information on such a tape....

Hewitson · 26 January 2019, 07:41

No colour information would have been done by design. Imagine all the data errors caused by PAL/NTSC artifacts!

donnie · 26 January 2019, 07:59

the world needs a new long lasting storage format.

vhs tapes lasts. I have 40 year old tapes that still work.

I wonder why diskettes are so shitty when tapes are so durable.

Hewitson · 26 January 2019, 08:54

I've actually found 5.25 diskettes much more reliable than 3.25. I have no idea why, since the media is exposed. Should be very unreliable but it isn't.

Toni Wilen · 26 January 2019, 08:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gorf

But since than I wondered about the relatively low data-rate. As far as I understand it is only using a relatively crude black and white encoding. No greyscale and no color information - the soundtrack on the tape is ignored.

The way it was done made it really cheap (only extra hardware is very simple single transistor level converter) and both writing or reading is relatively simple operation, CPU power requirements are quite low.

Megol · 26 January 2019, 12:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toni Wilen

The way it was done made it really cheap (only extra hardware is very simple single transistor level converter) and both writing or reading is relatively simple operation, CPU power requirements are quite low.

Is that really true? At least one of the systems used error correcting codes, there were an article in Dr Dobbs journal (old programming magazine) where the programmer described how the code was optimized to run on Amigas. IIRC it was an Reed-Solomon code but it's a long time ago.

TroyWilkins · 26 January 2019, 13:19

I remember seeing the advertisments for the VBS in all the Amiga magazines back in the day and being very curious about it - how did it actually work, was it reliable, could it be improved upon...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hewitson

I've actually found 5.25 diskettes much more reliable than 3.25. I have no idea why, since the media is exposed. Should be very unreliable but it isn't.

I could be wrong here, but I suspect the data density on the physical medium has something to do with it. I mean, 1.2MB on a high density 5.25" PC disk, or 1.44MB on a high density 3.5" PC disk. The physically smaller disk has more data packed into a smaller physical space. This even counts for the double density disks that most Amigas used, 880KB on a 3.5" Amiga disk requires more dense storage than 1.2MB stored on a 5.25" disk.

But hey, I could be wrong, wouldn't be the first time, won't be the last, haha

Toni Wilen · 26 January 2019, 14:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by Megol

Is that really true? At least one of the systems used error correcting codes, there were an article in Dr Dobbs journal (old programming magazine) where the programmer described how the code was optimized to run on Amigas. IIRC it was an Reed-Solomon code but it's a long time ago.

There is free time during vertical blanking, I guess it is enough to do some error checking/correction.

Gorf · 26 January 2019, 16:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hewitson

No colour information would have been done by design. Imagine all the data errors caused by PAL/NTSC artifacts!

At least in Europe and a SCART enabled VRC it would not be a problem to use the chroma signal for data (or redundancy / error correction) as well.

If you look at the size and quality of a VHS tape, most where equally good or better than dedicated tape backup systems.
In comparison even the old C64 Datasette stored information denser than this method.

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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: 48 Posts: 9,355	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: 43 Posts: 9,863	Yeh, especially for the poverty stricken teenagers that many of us were. :-)

04 July 2011, 08:42	#24
laffer Zone Friend Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Norway Age: 43 Posts: 1,335	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: 75	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: 360	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: 307	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: Tromaville Age: 46 Posts: 7,545	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.

25 January 2019, 02:32	#29
Srksi Posts: n/a	lol, forgive me on this unholy necrosis, but yes, I used those. Less as storage, more as way of getting new stuff. Living at village at end of world, opening new aga tape with 150 games was like opening lost ark! Joy when you finally manage to load game beside damaged point, trading with tapes, ah memories...

25 January 2019, 05:39	#30
Hedeon Semi-Retired Join Date: Mar 2012 Location: Leiden / The Netherlands Posts: 2,002	What? Did your head explode or did your face melt?

25 January 2019, 21:40	#31
brett71 Registered User Join Date: May 2010 Location: Ames, IA, USA Posts: 521	I used the VBS back in the day as well! It was pretty cheap, easily built, worked fairly well. I can't remember any of my tapes failing.

25 January 2019, 21:54	#32
Gorf Registered User Join Date: May 2017 Location: Munich/Bavaria Posts: 2,295	I never used one of these solutions back than ... actually I first heard of this method long after it was already obsolete. But since than I wondered about the relatively low data-rate. As far as I understand it is only using a relatively crude black and white encoding. No greyscale and no color information - the soundtrack on the tape is ignored. It should be possible to store much more information on such a tape....

26 January 2019, 07:41	#33
Hewitson Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 41 Posts: 3,773	No colour information would have been done by design. Imagine all the data errors caused by PAL/NTSC artifacts!

26 January 2019, 07:59	#34
donnie Registered User Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: sthlm Posts: 226	the world needs a new long lasting storage format. vhs tapes lasts. I have 40 year old tapes that still work. I wonder why diskettes are so shitty when tapes are so durable.

26 January 2019, 08:54	#35
Hewitson Registered User Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: Melbourne, Australia Age: 41 Posts: 3,773	I've actually found 5.25 diskettes much more reliable than 3.25. I have no idea why, since the media is exposed. Should be very unreliable but it isn't.

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