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Re:My Eight-Year Quest to Digitize 45 Videotapes by pontifier on Thursday October 22, 2020 @12:32AM (#24854897)
Funny... I've been contemplating a SLOWER than realtime tape digitizer. Something that would make multiple passes and reconstruct the magnetic domains on the tape with very high certainty.
Re:My Eight-Year Quest to Digitize 45 Videotapes by jacobush on Thursday October 22, 2020 @07:48AM (#24857018)
Yep. Especially a hacked VCR could be made to do this. If one taps the data from the spinning head directly, instead of relying on the VCR to process it into a proper composite signal, I'd say it's even realistic to do this.

Just run the tape at half or a quarter of the speed. The spinning helical head should still produce data. Then it's a matter of assembling it in software.