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I'm a BSEE who, among many things, has done VCR (etc.) repair for over 30 years. I own many VCRs and a really high-end A/D converter. I do this for people from time to time.

The BEST VCR to play a tape is the _one_ it was recorded on. There is NO guarantee that the recording machine was 100% aligned to correct standards. Even among perfectly aligned new machines and adjusting tracking, a tape recorded on one can look terrible on another. There are so many possible mechanical variations due to normal manufacturing tolerances, and minute differences can make huge differences in the final picture. Each manufacturer has their own design ideas. Flying head thickness is a factor. Head wear is a huge factor- as the head wears, the gap will widen. You may not see the difference until it gets so bad that the video frequency response is bad and you see it. I could go on and on about tape path, head azimuth, etc., mechanical adjustments, and sometimes dozens of electronic adjustments (especially in older machines), but I won't bore you.

Bottom line: I have many brands and models so I can pick the best VCR for the tape. Tape wear is negligible during transport, _unless_ there is a broken head, worn flying head (big gap), tape path guide misaligned, etc. If in doubt, play another tape for 20 seconds or so, eject it, flip open the cover, and see if the tape is visibly damaged at all before playing your good tape.

Panasonic and Mitsubishi are great. At both a company I worked for and an A/V team I was part of did some tests and the Mitsubishis had the best video frequency response of 10 or so brands we tested. Sony wasn't bad, but cost more and seemed to wear out faster.

A great A/D converter for the money is Canopus ADVC 110 Converter. Some high-end ones: http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/intensity/, http://www.ospreyvideo.com/products/osprey-cards, and I have an AJA http://www.aja.com/.

I remember the 6502...

Manufacturers can currently make cards that will work in modern Mac Pro computers. In fact, I seriously extended the life of my G4 Mac by installing a SATA card in it so that I could use (more modern and faster) SATA drives with the computer. I also upgraded the GPU. I will probably do something along those lines with my Cheese Grater and, maybe, it will be useful for about 10 years like my last computer.

The idea around the Apple // computer was that hardware hacks were a good way to extend it. And people sold breadboards that you could install and test on your Apple //. But you really needed to know what you were doing, else you could fry your motherboard and that would be really bad. So the Steve Wozniak part of the Apple Computer company did their best to publish warnings and specifications so that hardware hackers would make innovative stuff for the Apple //.

Today, hardware hackers are still out there. You can get the complete hardware information you need about a Mac Pro as a hardware developer, so that you can make a card to install in the computer to handle digital audio, VTR control, set up a hard disk array or anything else a Mac can do in the workplace. Were that not the case, there would be no Blackmagic Design, no AJA Video systems, no Digidesign, and no CI Design as just a few examples.

The spirit of the 1980s still lives on, mostly in the software communities that are writing free, open software. I don't see breadboards for sale these days for Apple computers -- but I don't see them for pee cees either. But that doesn't mean they are not being made. That means I'm not shopping for them.

I like where we have headed. It used to be that animation, destined for video (which is a much smaller screen than the cinema) took overnight to do just a few seconds, with a really expensive SGI workstation attached to a 1" C-format open reel VTR, recording one frame at a time (and you hoped there would be no h-phase errors, else you would have to start rendering all over). Today, we can play Doom real-time on our 24" monitors attached to our inexpensive personal computers with better than 30 frames per second render times for each whole frame in widescreen. The "computer" that landed the Lunar Excursion Module on the moon would probably be an inferior cousin to the processor you find in a hand calculator today. And those computers were really, really expensive. The Apple // did everything in "character mode," drawing things with very crude graphics developed out of an extended character set. Forget about shading, drop shadows and the like. So, looking at my Apple Studio Display, running in 32-bit color at 1920 x 1200 powered by my NVIDIA GeForce GT 120 with 512 MB of video RAM, I'm seeing a nicer image than the Apple //, hooked up to a monitor or a TV using a box that the FCC said was illegal.

I'm still bummed that Pystar lost, even though they ought to have in every sense. Here were these scrappy guys out there trying to re-invent the Mac Clone. My first experience with Apple's System Software was with a Mac Clone. but I don't want to go "back to the future" and I don't hate Steve Jobs because of the result.

AJA has linux support, drivers and SDK for (at least) their OEM boards: http://www.aja.com/html/products_oem.html

and Bluefish444 has Linux SDK available to registered OEM customers: bluefish444 OEM

We are about to try those for use in our product in Q4/08 (hopefully)... If anyone knows other possibilities we would like to know!

AJA has linux support, drivers and SDK for (at least) their OEM boards: http://www.aja.com/html/products_oem.html

and Bluefish444 has Linux SDK available to registered OEM customers: bluefish444 OEM

We are about to try those for use in our product in Q4/08 (hopefully)... If anyone knows other possibilities we would like to know!

... a video input/output card for Linux that supports component (YPbPr) video.

Deltacast

AJA

Bluefish444

They are high quality professional grade cards and the price range is also high.

I have no doubt that you do. Here, I'll even link to such a device in that price range:
http://www.adstech.com/products/API-557-EFS/intro/ api557_intro.asp?pid=API-557-EFS

Will it capture HD over those component inputs, uh, no.

Want one that will? You'll need a bigger check book:
http://www.aja.com/html/products_Io_IoHD.html

Want a cheap solution? This is the closest you'll get right now. It is brand new, eats 400+GB/hour at 1080i, and its not supported in any PVR app:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/intensit y/

Not trying to be an 'arse' here, but pony up some product specs and I'll suspend my disbelief.

Look at Blackmagic Design or AJA for there cards. The card itself appers as an video card to the os, so you can run VLC or another player on that screen. This way you get an SDI signal out of it.

If you can accept an analog component signal then look into a nvidia card which has component output under linux from there drivers.

Guys, guys, guys! Calm down, calm down!

I think he's trying to be funny.

I am English. I know sarcasm. It's what we do. And I think that's what he's trying to do here. It's not very well done, but there are little hints. It's why he links to himself and calls himself "some idiot". It's why he specifically mentions the M-Audio and Kona kit (the latter is Mac only). Of course it works with the Mac.

So all those who are praising him for his insight, for debunking the Mac myth - stop now. Same goes for the Mac fanbois who are trying to find fault with his article.

It's subtle, I'll allow that, but remember: always consult the nearest Brit before responding to something that sounds a little bit too stupid to be true. It probably is.

iqu :P

you're wrong.
you need pro hardware, such as http://www.aja.com/products_kona.html
that will do the trick pretty easily.

I'm personnally gearing up & buying pro-hardware for my video needs, as I'm pretty sure that one will be DRM-shit less

Kona-2 card, by AJA
http://www.aja.com/
Works on a Apple G5