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Philips VCR Records MPEG On (D-)VHS tape
wfberg writes: "This Philips VCR
records and reads normal VHS tapes, but also records MPEG 2 video digitally on tape. You need 'special' tape for this though (presumably to boost philips tape sales). It sports digital-input and since it's RW and digital, this should piss off the DVD people. Since Philips owns a stake in TiVo, maybe TiVos will make tape-backups in the future? ;-)" The flip-down edit panel looks cool. I wonder how hard it would be to get FireWire out as well as in ...
The CPTWG (Copy Protection Technical Working Group) is pushing very hard to have copy protection measures incorporated into IEEE 1394 (FireWire) devices. The idea is to prevent "unauthorized" use of digital content, no matter where you tap into the chain.
Intel has put forward a proposal for incorporating copy protection measures into IEEE 1394. There's also an organization pushing Digital Transmission Content Protection which, if Hollywood gets its way, will be incorporated into your new digital televisions by the time NTSC signals go dark in 2006.
Anyone wanna help me try to stop this garbage?
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
Oh my goodness.. a good-quality rerecordable tape system?? That's AWESOME. It'll NEVER last.
Because now we get to watch the MPAA and all the television companies bitch like hell and throw money at congress until this thing here goes the way of the DAT tape.
Well, there seems to be an unwritten rule that wealthy corporations do not attempt to stop other wealthy corporations from doing things they'd normally scream bloody murder about, so Phillips may get away with it. Phillips seems to have gotten away with the computerless CDR-copier thing, anyway, and i doubt much of anyone is using that for anything but piracy. I dunno. let's see.
I saw no reference in the specs to MPEG-2. maybe i missed something? It says it uses MPEG-1 for the audio.. which layer? 3? Or would that be too much encoding time? can it _play_ mp3/mp2 even if it can't record?
I'm drooling thinking about any layer MPEG on a tape. VHS sound is so awful. ARRGH i wish these specs were more specific.
Hmm.. wonder how it handles the rewinds? better than DVD, you'd think?
I'm just sitting here thinking about how unbelievably cool it would be to watch a tracking error (or even better forcably speeding up, slowing down, or running backward the drive) on an MPEG-based tape. MPEG artifacts are normally interesting, but watching it attempt to read MPEG and just get random bits sloshing back and forth.. TRIPPY. My pupils are dilating just thinking about it.
-mcc-baka
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Well, I think you're on the right track. But there is one problem with that: hard drives crash!
I don't think something like what you are describing ("hard drives on a centralized server") would be viable until hard drives get rid of their last moving parts... I mean, sure, you have your various RAID solutions, etc, but you still have to pay to keep replacing the drives, and that gets pricey, especially for hobbyists who can't afford a data center to store their music and movies.
The good thing about these digial tapes is that besides being cheap, (well, cheaper than, say, writable DVDs or a RAID array) you don't see the same degredation you do with conventional analog recordings. That said, I do think the technology has some good uses and shouldn't be disregarded as backward and ancient, as VHS probably should be. =)
Regarding DVD; personally, I like the format, I just wish it was free of the bureaucracy and greed that makes it a problem for some... but hey, that's probably more of a societal issue, anyway, and that is a whole different thread...