Show off your gaming setup

[|iR|Focalor]

VCR's ... it's still reliable method of recording.

Reliable as far as it works to record stuff, yeah. But it doesn't matter what kind of tape you use and VCR you play it back in, it's still got shitty picture and sound quality compared to optical discs. And just like floppy diskettes, over time data can magically disappear and degrade from it making the picture even snowier. One thing I did always like about VHS though was ability to record in SP, LP, and EP if you ever wanted to get a little more time on a tape if you didn't mind sacrificing a few frames and overall quality.

Usually I'm a fan of older forms of media like vinyl records at least for their sentimental value, but not really when it comes to VHS. VCR's are just too unpredictable. They can work just fine for a long time and then one day something happens, a part fails, and it starts winding the tape around a roller and wrinkles it all to hell, stretches it, or even worse, rips it, and then your favorite old VHS cassette is shit. Perhaps one day VHS cassettes of certain things might become highly collectible, I really can't say. These days everyone has a collectors mindset and nothing becomes worth much because everyone holds on to everything. Personally, I know I threw out 99% of my old VHS tapes back in maybe 2004, so maybe a lot of other people have too. It's kinda weird, VHS was really the first thing that allowed people to watch hollywood produced videos on demand in their homes, and with it being the first thing to come out, you'd think it would follow trend and be a little more collectible than it is. I'm sure in another 100 years it will be collectible especially if you still have an all original VHS player from 1987 in perfect working condition to play them on, but none of us will still be alive to know it. As it is, they're like 8-track cassettes: lots of people still have them, and no one wants them.

[yahoo]

if Im not mistaken, tv productions still uses the tape format simillar to the one used in VCRs

[The Happy Friar]

Tape is one of the best archival formats.  With analog there's VHS, SVHS, Beta, BetaSP & 3/4" (there could be another or two).  Digital there's MiniDV, DVCam, DVCPro DigiBeta & HD versions of those.  The magnetic signature on a good tape lasts longer then the oldest optical format so far (ie old audio recordings, transcription records are even older).  Computer disc drives (floppy & hard) are the same tech as the tape (metal based).  SSD's & some others are slowly replacing them but tape is still the best bang for the buck.

[|iR|Focalor]

By optical, I'm talking about things like CD and DVD. I don't see how any old audio recordings could be optical since optical is digital, and as far as I know, everything before the CD generation was analog. If you look at the back of CD covers, they have a three letter symbol on them. For a lot of older music, they might say AAD or ADD, which means recorded with analog, mixed with analog, and mastered digitally. I gotta assume most decent recording studios don't even use any analog equipment anymore unless it's specialized stuff like analog tape delay and modulation which is merely an effect used before it's recorded to a track.

[yahoo]

as far as I know, everything before the CD generation was analog.

DAT or digital audio tape was not analogue.

[|iR|Focalor]

I didn't think DAT became widely used until the 90s, maybe late 80s. Still, fuck a tape, if they're anything like regular audio cassettes, they warp and make the high frequencies flutter in and out.

[VaeVictis]

not exactly the same thing... but...
tape drives are still actually quite useful for computers slow, because they have to read and write sequentially... but they can store wayyyyyyyyyyyy more data, and are great for server backups and shit cause its all sequential then anyway

[The Happy Friar]

By optical, I'm talking about things like CD and DVD. I don't see how any old audio recordings could be optical since optical is digital, and as far as I know, everything before the CD generation was analog. If you look at the back of CD covers, they have a three letter symbol on them. For a lot of older music, they might say AAD or ADD, which means recorded with analog, mixed with analog, and mastered digitally. I gotta assume most decent recording studios don't even use any analog equipment anymore unless it's specialized stuff like analog tape delay and modulation which is merely an effect used before it's recorded to a track.

I was talking about CD/DVD/BD for optical too (film has an optical format too that is visual like film, forgot to mention that one).  CD/DVD/BD has a theoretical life longer then magnetic/metal storage, just isn't proven. 

There's a whole debate on analog vs digital in recording:  Digital definitely has a lower overall quality vs analog (when everything else is equal) because of the way they work.  Analog has no resolution in visuals, it's as detailed as the size of the physical media permits (film, tape, etc).  Digital sets a finite limit of that (3 megapixel, 44.1khz, etc).  Digital has a color limit which analog doesn't (that's why movies originally put & delivered on film has less color grading issues vs digital ones, you need HDR recording, editing and projection equipment to get the equivalent which is more $$ then a bright light bulb and motors).

Digital's a lot cheaper though, takes up less space and easier to handle.  You can control the devices by computer, making handling the devices easier.  When I was looking at HD cameras I was either getting a HDV (tape) or ACVHD (memory stick/drive).  Even though the HDV one was slightly lower resolution and needed tapes, the ACVHD was more compressed (so lower quality at higher resolution), slower to edit (because of the compression) and required more expensive memory cards vs tapes.  Tapes have their drawback too (ie dirty camera heads and dropouts) but I decided to deal with that instead.

[peewee_RotA]

When I worked for a company that did video production as part of it's curriculum, it would store the original material on tape. The edited stuff was all stored digitally at HD, but that was always a nightmare. Funny thing about it was that the digital stuff was stored on harddrives (much more prone to failure than storing tapes). I tried to convince them to move that data to DVD or blu-ray just for a secondary backup. I guess if they got themselves a high quality storage solution that had it's own regular backups it would be better still.

Anyway, moral of that strange story is that, in my experience, video editors would always seem to use tapes for source material.

[VIZAARI]

http://geekhack.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=48211&d=1334337852

There, gotta get some skandinavian shit here :p
(click link, i won't bother with resizing pic...)

[VaeVictis]

the crazy old school keyboard, and the ugly dell under the table, are both so out of place in that picture...

[adz1La]

see if you can spy the secret to my rail in the background.

[VIZAARI]

the crazy old school keyboard, and the ugly dell under the table, are both so out of place in that picture...

the crazy old school keyboard: It is ancient, but it is soo nice to use, I sold my Logitech G510 so that i could get this kb. Looks shit, is nice.

the ugly dell under the table: Ugh, yeah... It is ugly, I will get a new desk, then i can put this dell another place. I use it for streaming, hosting etc, so it is quite handy.

[THERSOfi]

I like your knife.

[fdrjk]

Bottle caps?