Other bad ideas of that era: Polaroid once developed a VHS cartridge with a mechanical counter of how many times it had been played. After some number of plays, the tape jammed.
One of the VHS archiving communities I'm in found one in a sealed envelope at an estate sale, played it, and then started a thread describing the content and asking if anyone knew why they couldn't get it to play a second time.
I don't remember the precise terms for the various concepts, but hopefully that shows how specific to a given format the reader needs to be.
Some other bits of jank in the VHS spec:
- Because the tape is moving while it's being written, it stretches the signal out on the tape. This is perfectly fine for normal playback. But when the tape is not moving, the signal's now too wide for the playback head, and you can only read about half the picture. That's why your VCR had bars of static whenever you paused (unless you sprung for the four-head model)
- Audio is still recorded linearly, and you can't exactly chuck a linear head in an angled, spinning drum. So you have to put the audio head further away from the tape. And that distance is fixed; changing it means your machine is now playing audio out of sync with the video.
Also, there is an extension to VHS that lets you record audio along the video in the helical area, it's called VHS Hi-Fi and it improves the audio dramatically with the trade-off that any minor video glitches will add pops to the audio. Humans are way more sensitive to gaps in audio than video, after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KfuARMCyTvg
I'd recommend pretty much all of his video series to anyone in the HN crowd that's at all interested in analog media formats:
adg.
.beh
..cf
It's a lot like decoding music from vinyl grooves based on a 2D image scan of the vinyl.
Individual magnetic lines of a VHS tape would only describe half a frame and the two halves would be interlaced back together.
However, there is hardware and software called GreaseWeazle that actually reads the magnetic flux transitions on the disks to extract the data within.
Not that long ago, motherboards still had a floppy controller. These computers do mostly still work.
So do the ones from the 80s, for that matter.
>USB 3.5" floppy drives
To anybody considering: Don't bother. They can only read/write the most standard IBM PC format. No flux streams.
Instead, get any old floppy drive and a greaseweazle at about the same cost. You'll be able to read and write all sorts of formats, and recover data from damaged and otherwise unreadable floppies.
My thought is that, if you could develop a sensor capable of sampling magnetic alignment at sub-micrometer resolution it would also generate unbelievable amounts of data that would first need compressing or decoding into AV signals.
https://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2012/03/unlocking-sounds-of-the-pa...
I remember one of the curators mentioning that they had a ton of WWII records for things like daily newscasts which due to wartime supply issues were made from less durable materials, and since they weren’t commercially valuable the owners hadn’t spent time transferring many of them to newer media.
Hard disk drive read head sweeping across the tape? Hard disk track widths are well below 1 micron so presumably the potential for high resolution is there?
EDIT: According to Wikipedia they did have a built-in record feature and the Wiki page even shows an image of a blank tape.
Reminded me of FlexPlay from 2003, "self destructing" DVDs for short-term rentals: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexplay
The first post recommended by tumblr at the bottom of this article was about FlexPlay (and DIVX): https://foone.tumblr.com/post/705631633513005056/so-regardin...
I thought I did not have a reason to employ a name or even think of productions like this as a format.
But, as you point out, the right name is unclear, and just calling it "a video" begs for a "what format?" discussion.
I like "video essay" quite a lot myself. Documentary can work too, but seems a bit off and I am struggling to express why.
Maybe one of us can ask the Technology Connections guy what name he would use. We might get a whole video on the subject!
I am going to ask. Join me. Very curious what he would say, and he would be among the top people qualified to talk about these things too.
Seems more than a documentary. Can totally be a video essay.
https://www.somethingweird.com/product_info.php?products_id=...
https://www.iafd.com/title.rme/title=adultery+for+fun+and+pr...
These red tapes feel like a ridiculous and cumbersome idea. Thinking about it, their concept won in the end though, in terms of media consumption and ownership...
Our current streaming services feel much more akin to these tapes, where you rely on a centralized entity to decide what you can watch and how, rather than infinitely repayable and transferable video tapes.
This isn't really possible with things like movies.
So it doesn't disagree very well.
[0]https://lunchmeatvhs.com/blogs/blog/rescue-your-awesome-anal...
Wonder what changed…
https://twitter.com/JayBauman1/status/1613910812632186881
Basically, old magnetic video tape is such a bad format that the only sane approach of "preservation" is to destroy it and digitize it.
What?
In order to view the content, check this archive link:
And yay! They are on tumblr! So much easier to read and I can subscribe to their posts.
This article seems like a pretty strong argument in the opposite direction: about a tape format which is effectively unreadable without significant heroics (to the extent that a documentary was made about trying to play one of these tapes.)
The format admittedly wasn't exactly successful, and I imagine more common formats would have better luck finding usable hardware. But even then, the tape still degrades.
If I really needed something to last a Very Long Time, I'd print it in highly redundant QR codes on lots of paper, and then also print the specs for QR codes and whatever other encodings were necessary.
Oh please. Just use raw PCM audio. No one will ever lose track of how to play that.
A 10.5 inch reel of 2 inch tape can be digitized just fine to 16 bit samples, 44/48kHz, 24 channels, most of an hour. That's about 7 gigabytes. So you could back up a huge number of digitized tapes to a dozen different locations quite easily. You could put a thousand of them on a pocket SSD.
https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1817219
An informative review (8/10 rating)
* The Happy Home Wrecker
10 February 2008
Sherpix, the company that produced and distributed works by filmmakers as diverse as Paul Morrissey and Alex De Renzy in the late '60s and early '70s, inadvertently helped jump-start the short-lived "Porno Chic" trend with ADULTERY FOR FUN AND PROFIT. Grand prize winner at the second (and last) Wet Dream Film Festival in Amsterdam, sponsored by Suck Magazine which had none other than Germaine Greer amongst its editorial staff, it was the first narrative feature by Richard Robinson and a considerable step up from his "white coater" THE ABC'S OF MARRIAGE. Apparently, Robinson (a/k/a "Rick Jr.") had a thing about wedlock as his 1974 masterpiece MARRIAGE AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS is anything to go by. With a happy go lucky script by E.E. Patchen, who would delve into far darker territory for Chris Warfield's sexploitation classic LITTLE MISS INNOCENCE, he seems more intent however on blowing this cornerstone of society to smithereens on this occasion.
Chunky California Casanova Richard (alleged one shot Frank Harris), with adorably chubby cheeks and great Bay City Rollers hair, has a lucrative sideline going, seducing married women on the brink of separation so their husbands won't have to put up alimony. His employer, a devious divorce lawyer (like there's any other kind !), is played by character actor John Dunn who supplemented his "respectable" work in movies like ANDY WARHOL'S BAD with non-sex appearances in skin flicks like LITTLE GIRLS (now wittily changed to WOMEN by Something Weird to avoid legal hassles !) GETTING AHEAD. This premise provides opportunities for successive sexual encounters with some of the genre's earliest and unjustly forgotten starlets. The classy platinum blonde with the great gams in scene 2 is Susan Westcott, also in Walt Davis' astonishing SEX PSYCHO and BLONDE IN BLACK LACE, an early Johnny Wadd entry by Bob Chinn. Richard charms her with the best pick up line ever, convincing her he makes "the most persuasive Martinis in town", adding "two olives for a pretty lady" pausing a beat "three for you !" How could she resist ? Lynn Holmes is the giggly blonde who was paired with namesake John in both SUPERSTUD and FOUR WOMEN IN TROUBLE and Casey Lorraine recycles her British bitch routine from Joe "Adele Robbins" Robertson's riotous romp LORD FARTHINGAY'S HOLIDAY as the story's catalyst, the dissatisfied wife who blackmails Rick into making it with her gay husband ! As envelope-pushing as early erotica may have been, this scene is suggested rather than shown.
Absolute best of show is an extended sequence that has Richard and a recent divorcée and former client (George Peters, who was in COMING WEST with "nudie cutie" royalty Maria Arnold and Sandy Carey) laying pipe with busty brunette Starlyn Simone from Dominic Bolla's memorably warped ANGEL ABOVE, THE DEVIL BELOW and delectable, fair-haired Rainbow Robbins, star of Robinson's subsequent MARRIAGE AND OTHER FOUR LETTER WORDS as well as Gerard Damiano's extremely obscure EVIL WAYS OF LOVE. They move from fireplace to shower and bedroom, exhibiting sustained erotic enthusiasm throughout, accompanied by several awesome tracks that sound suspiciously like library music even though a composer, Mario Litwin, is credited. This is also the most interesting scene visually as it allows the cinematographers, Sven Conrad and Robinson himself (as "David Worth"), to throw in a couple of clever compositions like both men back to back as they receive oral pleasure from their girlfriends in a nifty mirror image effect. Conrad remained to hone his skills within the industry, graduating to directing with some of the most eye-popping adult movies of the '80s (PINK CHAMPAGNE, BODY MAGIC, DOING IT !) and Robinson went on to helm POOR PRETTY EDDIE, one of the most notorious and hard to shake "blaxploitation" efforts ever. *
I'm just speechless.
It is not listed as 'Outstanding Sports Documentary' winner or even as nominee. Same for the 2014 Sports Emmy Awards.
[0] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2883206/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/34th_Sports_Emmy_Awards
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20131118154841/http://www.emmyon...
Indeed, that documentary won in the "Sports: Documentary" category in the 2014 New York Emmys ceremony.
See this list of the winners (note: PDF): https://www.nyemmys.org/media/files/files/7c2ad17b/57th_NY_E...
I say probably because out of the 14 episodes made the only one left today is episode 3, Little Lost Robot [2], the first adaptation of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot. The reason we don't have the other episodes? Apparently ABC had this practice of wiping the tapes after the episodes aired. What could they have been possibly thinking.
So many treasure troves, art and otherwise, have been lost to carelessness; perhaps with the new found generatively hallucinatory powers of statistical learning we could see some restorative trend, a retro-magination, based on extant leftovers. Perhaps Aristotle did write a treatise on Comedy after all [3].
[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0163475/?ref_=fn_al_tt_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_This_World_(British_TV_...
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-RX1GT4GT0
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Name_of_the_Rose#:~:text=T....
> In the early 70's the DuMont network was being bought by another company and the lawyers were in heavy negotiation as to who ould be responsible for the library of DuMont shows currently being stored in the facility - who would bear the expense of storing them in a temperature controlled facility, take care of copyright renewal, etc..
> One of the lawyers said he would "take care of it in a fair manner..." He took care of it all right...
> At 2am the next morning he had 3 huge semis back up to the loding dock at ABC, filled them with all the stored kinescopes and 2" videotape, drove them to a waiting barge in n New Jersey, took them out on the water, made a right at the Statue of Liberty and dumped them in Upper New York Bay. Very neat... no problem!
- Edie Adams, comedian, entertainer, and wife of Ernie Kovacs.
https://web.archive.org/web/20081208112200/http://www.loc.go...
Edie Adams’ son explains why her late husband Ernie Kovacs is seemingly forgotten in Hollywood
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/edie-adams-ernie-kovac...
Maintaining archives of material is actually a pretty complex and expensive process, especially when we're talking about physical analog media (that is sometimes literally a ticking time bomb, as is the case with old cellulose film stock). Also, such media is expensive to acquire, so reusing them wherever possible is useful to keep costs down.
Combine this with the fact that the value of such preservation is often not apparent. Reruns of old material don't provide a lot of value--especially in an era where there are very few available channels--and there's no practical means for making copies of them to even interested buyers, at least in any sort of economical way (see above about cost of media). It's not until around 1980 or so that the home video market is a viable way to make money on old productions, and it's around that time that the wiping of old broadcasts was stopped as a regular practice.
* They post something. Someone links to the post here. Someone makes a comment here to the effect of "I think this about what he said". Someone else replies with "actually, it's 'they'". Shitstorm. Therefore, HN is populated primarily by transphobes.
* They post something on Twitter. Someone links to the tweet here. Someone comments on how they wish it was a blog rather than a series of tweets. Apparently the author feels personally attacked by such comments.
* They post something. Someone links to the post here. A Twitter bot tweets the article from here and @s them, therefore they have to keep blocking those bot accounts, and this is apparently HN's fault.
What I find fascinating is that, other than the bots thing, which is now irrelevant because apparently they don't use Twitter anymore, whether someone links to a post of theirs here or not has no effect on them unless they decide to come here and read what people say about it. It's an unusual case of extreme fragility and seemingly wishing to be punished. "Ow! The fire burns me! I should be able to stick my hand in the fire without being burned!"
EDIT: Relevant Twitter thread: https://twitter.com/Foone/status/1440375176604966924?s=20
Your comment will likely be nuked because HN posters and admins hide behind a thin veneer of faux-civility and a cognitive dissonance where both information wants to be free and also you're not allowed to point out that the vast majority of posters are bigoted morons. (because "politeness")
They tend to be like the libertarians who are only libertarian because they think it excuses their bigotry and shields it from criticism (or even examination) who then shed their ideals like a molting snake whenever it suits them.
So yeah, pretty much. JK Rowling is an individual who got very lucky by being at the right place at the right time who now thinks they are smarter than everyone else.
