LGR Oddware - Danmere VHS PC Backup System

Sean Yem

Awesome video as always. The company that makes it isn't far away from where I live. But never heard of them or this device. I think it is facinating use of VHS... Thanks for sharing...

SammyToesis

I didn't know files looked so mesmerizing on a VHS tape...

Ant Field

Disappointed you didn't try capturing this to DV and playing it back! How to turn 80MB into 80GB!!!

avfusion

Totally missed this in my feed, but I'm super glad I caught it. This is super awesome. Imagine backing up your entire hard disk to your DVR at the time.

Sanguine Games

I first saw this system offered in a TigerDirect catalog! I regret not buying it. But I don't regret it THAT much. :) Thanks for making this video!

Justin Dotson

Makes me want to back up to the whole tape and put some vaporwave on, sit back, relax, and live in some 90's nostalgia.

floverSaeu09

Whooooooo!!!

SuperBunnyBun

Now I wonder if there's a Laserdisc burner

what about a VHS tape with the tape being very black like the one you did in are VHS as bad as we remember

The 8-Bit Guy

With the resources that thing required (two DMA channels) that would have also made it highly unpopular for just about anything other than a file-server. Possibly the parallel port version would have had less issues? What would have probably made more sense would have been for them to actually sell a real hardware device, such as a slightly modified VCR that actually had a digital input/output to the parallel port or SCSI or something like that. Then it could have had all of the benefits of professional tape backup solutions, with the low-cost VHS tape.

mavrick

your transitions are getting quite artistic!

LGR

Oh man, that does give me some ideas for some kind of horror now that you mention it! Not that there aren't enough things in that trope :) <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HauntedTechnology" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HauntedTechnology</a>

LGR

Yes indeed! Although writable laserdiscs (CRVs) and the equipment are incredibly rare and expensive since they weren't exactly sold on the consumer market

Dude

Isn't LaserDisc a composite analog format? Could backing up data from a Windows 3.1 computer onto a LaserDisc be the nerdiest thing ever?!

11:05 I think "PRESS REC AND PLAY ON TAPE" would be clearer instructions :^)

A solution like this would have been even nicer if it had a control cable for the VCR or an IR blaster. That would have added a lot of cost and complexity though I suppose.

Rob Caporetto

As flawed as it is/was, there's something about the ingenuity on how it works which is still amazing. And that clip of the actual data as it sits on the cassette? Totally feels like something which could be used for nightmare fuel. A very interesting piece of Oddware indeed!

LGR

It'd be more reliable that way, sure, but still not as reliable as using a more traditional and well-tested tape cart backup system :)

Mike Lycett

Great video man! question, would this be a reliable (although slow)storage method if you backed up to a PC capture card or set top DVD recorder and just save digital files in the cloud or somthing?

LGR

I would LOVE to take a look at one of those cards someday

LGR

Glad you left satiated! And technically, I guess I'm distributing files through a YouTube video, which maybe is a first?

LGR

True that! Although, the lackluster reliability kind of deters any advantage it might have in security by obscurity

LGR

Thanks! It's a neat game and I love the packaging in that edition.

LGR

I didn't understand it at all, I just found the image while googling for VHS backup stuff :)

LGR

Oh man, that's true! I've actually been considering a quick episode on Black MIDI

LGR

It was simply titled Bryce3D, the first one to go by that name. I think it may be 3.0?

LGR

Well I'm happy I picked the right show to put it in then, hehe

LGR

That's what I like to hear :)

LGR

Ha!

LGR

Haha, I was *just* looking for a minidisc camcorder the other day.

LGR

Yeah I'm sure that would work as long as the resulting video is clean enough

LGR

Thanks! I was entirely too curious to give up

LGR

DMA struggles were real with all sorts of hardware back then, haha. Man, I do not miss that aspect of retro computing

LGR

I would love to see his take on it someday and I do wonder if he'd have better luck finding one since he's already over there in its home country. And the track listing is in the video description now :)

LGR

I'd love to try Betamax at all! I've only ever had VHS when it comes to video tape

LGR

Whoa

LGR

Thanks, I recently picked that up after seeing NIB copies on Ebay

LGR

Seems that even with the early '90s solutions I mentioned it still didn't catch on here in the US! Really does make sense in other parts of the world where better storage solutions weren't so prevalent or cheap

LGR

I'd love to track one of those down someday to compare

Kevin Furr

Damn, I bought the Beta backup

very odd tech

Michael Vokabre

I was familiar with Russian ArVid, but never heard of this one! Great video, it was a pleasant watch! (P.S. My proposal of sending to you an ArVid when i'll come across a working one is still valid!)

Garoninja

That would be cool

Garoninja

You should defiantly try other video formats for back ups! It's too bad the RCA CED's aren't recordable. Windows stored on vinyl would be amazing. Also thank you for showing the video feed of the backup. It satisfied my curiosity.

TJ @ The Variety Show Podcast

A very inventive system. I'd have thought it would have been good for security seeing that so few users adopted it and the hardware required. Love it!!

Love the Collector's Edition of Star Trek: TNG: A Final Unity on the left :D

Just one note, on video is -how on Earth did you understand what Serbian (or maybe old ex-Yu) magazine wrote about sharing pirated copies of video games &amp; data on VHS tapes. Damn, it was back in old days, but still dayum, I need to find that magazine and read it in my own as somebody who knows Serbian well ;) Please @Lazy Game Reviews share it somehow, just give me damn copy from where did you get it.

evistre

Too cool. The video of the data reminds me of black midis (esp the header/footer!)

Nicholas Wilson

Actually there was a digital, HD VHS video. Techmoan did a video on it. :)

Aidan Bayer

Hey, Clint! Out of curiosity, which version of Bryce3D do you have running on LGR '98? Saw your renders on Twitter and I'd like to get something similar going for a personal project. Backed!

That was certainly odd, I didn't know this possible.

David Roberts

That was indeed very odd!

Apothecarrion

i find it amusing that one of the games behind you is O D T (oddity)

László Viktor Lajos

That was awesome :D and wow It would be nice to see these recorded to DVD-s or something, how does that work

iCach0

mind blown

moosemaimer

Now try to do a wireless backup-up over UHF/VHF.

Wow, the concept that this could work with anything that stores video really makes the mind boggle.. backups to U-Matic and Minidisc camcorder w h e n

Wonder what it would be like backing your computer with a Tivo or using a capture card recording it in MPEG or get crazy using Divx or maybe even using RealPlayer format.

Evan B

wow. .that was fascinating that you got it to work. Props for sticking thru all the troubleshooting you had to do.

Ken Klavonic

I dimly remember seeing mentions of VHS backup systems back in the day. Even then, it seemed like a weird, convoluted idea. Your struggles with DMA and dropped files (IIRC, shell.dll is kinda important) makes me happy that I gave it a miss back then.

Luke Chang

Pretty cool! Since it came from UK, I wonder Techmoan might like to check out this piece of tech lol. BTW what's the name of the song in outro? That track is dooope

Will Herrmann

I'd love to see you try this with Betamax or something along those lines!

Matthew Scott

Cool! I remember seeing this advertised in Amiga magazines.

Hah, 20 years today exactly since the Danmere page was updated :-p

1:00 *audician 32+ in the background* I applaud your choice of SB compatible cards, good sir

BastetFurry

From what i heard these systems where very popular in Russia in the 90s. VHS was dirt cheap whereas you couldn't even get the other stuff. And if you could it was expensive as gold.

The Enforcer

I imagine this device could have had a better chance in the earlier 90s before we got hit with a slew of storage options. Even then, it's still a bizarre notion to have VHS tapes become a backup solution (and this is from someone who does use tapes at work for backups).

This was really neat. I just recently learned that VHS was a way to make backups ;-) of Amiga games. Here's a picture of a setup (not mine): <a href="https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/19025016_10154822046212869_1721807283121376311_o.jpg?oh=900d9687210a73cfc8e007750a0f4929&amp;oe=5A092B68" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://scontent-arn2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/19025016_10154822046212869_1721807283121376311_o.jpg?oh=900d9687210a73cfc8e007750a0f4929&amp;oe=5A092B68</a> edit: looked a bit closer and realized this is in fact the Video Backup System that you mention on the video =)

Plain weird that you can put data on a VHS especially as I am a child of the 90s and born in the 80s. I was brought up on VHS video tapes and recording.

Yay! It's working!