LGR
8 HN mentions · mentioned in 8 months, 2018–2023
16:02 · 1M views · Aug 11, 2017
LGR reviews the Danmere Backer16, a 1996 backup system that stored a PC's data on ordinary VHS tapes through a VCR. He shows the hardware and software on Windows 3.1 and 95.
HN links it whenever data-on-video-tape or YouTube-as-storage schemes come up, as the real precedent for storing digital data on VHS.
8 comments from Hacker News
Literally the modern equivalent of the old video-based backup systems. I remember they existed for both the PC and the Amiga. You would load a blank VHS tape into a VCR, connect the output of the computer to that VCR's input, and then tell the program which data you'd like to backup to the tape. It would generate this flashing "mess" of black and white pixels that you'd record to the tape. To restore, you'd connect the VCR output to a little box that came with the product, it would convert the black and white data in the video signal to a data stream that the program would use to restore your data. A portion of the signal would be used for timing, metadata and error correction, so the program could tell you if the data was sufficiently damaged upon restore. LGR has a video on the PC version from Danmere: this video Here's a video example of the Amiga industry's take on the idea: [LINK] Sony even did this in 1980 to record CD-quality PCM audio onto VHS tape. [LINK]
Not sure about audio tapes, but video tapes could hold a lot of data... there was even a D-VHS standard: [LINK] - 50 gigs also some standards worked with normal tapes: this video (1.5gig)
You just need enough redundancy/error correction. Back in the day there were systems to back up to VHS tapes and those were way more lossy than YouTube this video
Yes! There were many such systems, LGR made a video for one of them, also showing the interface (as in: hardware and GUI) for the backup: this video
this video NTSC video signals offer a lot of bandwidth but very very few promises about the quality of the reproduction of the stored waveform