Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Digital recording on a VCR
Message-ID: <1990Jan18.164648.15896@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <21254@siemens.siemens.com> <13400@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Thu, 18 Jan 90 16:46:48 GMT

In article <13400@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes:
>me and a friend have wondered how tough it would be to record a stream of
>digital pulses on a vcr tape and play them back (i.e. cheap HD backup, speed
>doesn't really matter). We tried putting the serial port though an op-amp
>and recording it on cassette tape, however we had some trouble...

VCRs are not like audio recorders; they know that their input is a video
signal and tinker accordingly.  (For example, as I recall, they record sound
and picture separately on the tape, meaning they know how to take a video
signal apart.)  You're going to have to make your digital data look like
video, at least to the extent of having sync pulses, I'd guess.
-- 
1972: Saturn V #15 flight-ready|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1990: birds nesting in engines | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu