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Can You Back Up Data On Audio/Visual Media?

Posted by Cliff on from the cheap-digita-storage dept.

O enrique asks: "Since digital video is becoming a popular issue, I wonder when would we put in practice the possibility to do file backup (non audiovisual data storage) into digital tapes using those firewire enabled cameras. Each 1 hour tape (less than 10$) stores more than 10 Gbytes of data! As far as I know, nowadays Linux is only able to grab data from such devices, but not to store into them. Well, it seems that some people already thought about it, but I've seen nothing complete. See the Web pages here and here. Is someone else interested on it?"

13 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. Could be made to work by JCMay · · Score: 4

    I remember a while back there used to be a system that pressed a standard VCR into service as a backup system. The data was recorded as a black and white pattern in the video, and that was recorded on the tape. A special cable was attached to the serial port and the data could then be retrieved. At least that's how the Amiga version worked :) I'm sure it would be possible to make it work; the question would be at what cost (would new hardware be required? Those cameras I don't think were made to accept video from their USB ports, were they?), and the effort involved (Spend a fortune to save a nickel?) Jeff Jeff

  2. Wow, what a sense of deja vu by alumshubby · · Score: 3

    Anybody else here remember using a tape recorder to upload/download software onto a PET, TRS-80, or an Apple II? And when you were loading a program, sometimes you weren't quite sure if the loading sequence had worked until it got to the end and you entered RUN.

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    "How many light bulbs does it take to change a person?" --BMcC-->
    1. Re:Wow, what a sense of deja vu by ch-chuck · · Score: 4

      Why yes - you only have to type a game into an Atari once before realizing, "Damn, I need to get a mass storage device".

      Next question: Anyone ever seen a vinyl record with software on it? I remember a few ads for records that you could feed into an audio in jack (where the cassette normally goes) - sure would like to find one of those. (they were not for Atari tho - some other format that could use a std. el-cheapo audio cassette deck - Atari used their own special tape deck.)

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      try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  3. VHS backup by njet · · Score: 4

    Check this and this

  4. I'd be nervous. by Snowfox · · Score: 5

    Early on, many discovered that they could use DAT audio tapes in their DAT backups with just a few modifications.

    A little later on, many discovered that DAT audio tapes had nothing like the quality of DAT backups. One bit in a million is an acceptable error rate for an audio DAT. Even with matrix row/column checksumming and similar space-eating data safeguarding schemes, one bit in a million can be disasterous.

    If these video cameras follow the model of digital music devices, they are going to be quite forgiving of errors in the media. It's easy to fudge a few bits here and there when you only need to be accurate enough to fool a human ear through a couple thousandths of a second, or a human eye for 1/60th.

    I'll be wary of this until someone can verify that a situation similar to that of DATs doesn't exist here.

  5. 8mm digital tapes & Sony TRV-203 by Ummite · · Score: 4

    Hello folks

    My friend and I already though about that. Since it's very easy to do on Windows, we tought it would be a great way to do backup and/or exchange huge files. The simple idea was to do a big .zip, rename it to .avi and then store it on the cam, and vice-versa.

    The problem is to retrieve only a part. Even if it's theorically possible to go to a precise frame and then, do a kind of "fat" which we could store at the first frame or first second, since the data on cd-rom is becoming .30$ / 700 megs, doing parts would render the idea of one big 10 gig file useless for all the troubles.

    The data rate for an AVI-DV is approx 3.5 Megs/sec, allowing 12.6 gig of total space.

    I think seriously that such a way to backup should really remain for hack purpose, because dvd writer becoming available for normal people probably in 2002. The price of dvd-r will probably drop a lot then (as cd first were 3$ each, now less than 1/10 of it's original price), it will make that hack useless.

    But eh, I'll try it tonight

  6. For people with Internet Explorer Who Cant See: by CyberKnet · · Score: 3

    http://www.anonymizer.org/surf_encoded/http://www. ajwm.net/backfire/

    use anonymizer to hide your browser

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    Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
  7. internet standards; partial repost by macpeep · · Score: 3

    I should have used "preview" on my previous post...

    <html>
    <title>Defective Browser:</title>
    <body><h1>Access denied: incompatible browser.</h1>

    Ironically, <title> should be inside <head>..</head> so the *page* is incompatible with Internet standards. Meanwhile....

  8. Tape Drives Are An Anachronism by baudtender · · Score: 3

    I think that tape drives are a technology that deserves to go the way of the punch card. While everyone talks about the speed of backing up on such devices, the amount of time that it takes to restore from one is rarely mentioned. And for good reason - on many of these devices, doing a full restore of 5GB or more after a drive death will have you scratching your butt for days (yes, that's plural) waiting for the damn thing to finish. While it's better than no restore at all, I don't think many people recognize just how long their critical systems will be down. In my book, the only mechanism worth using for backing up a single large IDE drive is another IDE drive! With plenty of fast 40GB UDMA-3 drives popping up on Price Watch for well under $140, I decided that in the long run it is much more economical to put in one of those removeable IDE trays and back up to a second (or incrementally, a third or fourth when you look at the cost of a 40GB tape backup device) IDE drive.

  9. Encapsulation ? by mirko · · Score: 3

    Maybe (if this is not directly possible) you could encapsulate the raw data to be saved in video struct : this way, any software aimed at exploiting these data would "see" proper video whereas an eye would only see some "noise" ?
    Why "if this is not directly possible" ? I once used my camera's 32Mb Smartmedia card to store MP3 in order to carry these between 2 laptops and it has been unusable since then.
    That's why I guess there might be a problem with some types of data.
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    Trolling using another account since 2005.
  10. Exabyte Drives are 8mm Video, Basically by ssclift · · Score: 3

    In the 1980's my Dad got an Exabyte drive for his VMS cluster at work (ca. 1Gb back then, I think). The big selling point was the ease of getting media: standard 8mm video tapes. He tested various brands until settling on a couple that produced consistently good backups. He's been able to recover decade+ old backups from those video tapes, much older than the oldest 9mm backup tapes that still work.

    Eventually I bought an Exabyte drive for the lab I sys-admined as a grad student.

    Of course, manufacturers would love to FUD-you into buying their "data-grade" tape, but the video tape works just as well most of the time. I think Fuji and Maxell were good brands, but I'll have to check with Dad first. I've got Exabyte backups on video tapes; it's a very good system. Just remember that nothing is forever: re-tape your media regularly (which does not mean often, just regularly).

  11. VCR backup folklore by Megane · · Score: 5
    Here's a little story I heard about a VHS backup system. Seems a pawn shop had acquired one of these beasties, and decided to use it to back up their computer data.

    One night somebody broke into the pawn shop, saw the VCR, pulled the tape out of it, turned to the camera, smiled and waved. He thought he had pulled the security tape. The cops had a real good picture of him which was more than enough to put him in jail for quite some time.

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    #naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
  12. *Very* Nervous by StormyMonday · · Score: 4

    Back in the early/mid 1980s[1], I got burned by one of these. It backed up a PDP-11/23 to a VHS VCR. Management[2] bought into this as our only backup for the 11/23s.

    The first test I ran was simple:

    1. Make a full backup
    2. Delete a file
    3. Restore the file from the backup

    It didn't work. All it did was read through the entire tape and report "restore unsuccessful". No useful info. Bad tape? Maybe, but I tried with a couple of different tapes. My guess was that the software was only capable of handling "full partition" backup and restore, despite what the manual said. I assume (with no evidence) that *somebody* ran *some* tests before they bought into this.

    To add insult to injury, they bought top- of- the- line VCRs, about US$1000 each at the time. The VCRs had been in- house for less than a week before they started disappearing[3] ....

    [1] Yes, we had computers then.
    [2] Pointy hair is timeless.
    [3] I guess this was a self-solving problem, except that we had no working backup.

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