How old school video digitizers worked
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- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2017
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In this episode I take a look at how oldschool video digitizers like the "computer eyes" for the Commodore 64.
I will never get bored of David's "wave and smile awkwardly at a camera" face. It comes up so often when he is showing off some camera equipment and it always makes me smile
I was at VCF Midwest 2022 with a vintage Sony HVC-2800 video camera from 1982. We were filming a skit ("game show") with David and LGR (which can be found on the Dave's Retro Video Lab channel on RUclips) and when he walked offstage he waved at me and the camera in the exact way he always does. I still have the video on a Betamax tape.
3:19 is the point where he pulls out a comically large compact disc, and that's one of the funniest things I've seen
Laser disc, they were a real thing mid eighties. Totally gone now, like the floppy disk.
The quality reminds me of that of the Gameboy Camera
Ahmed360 was totally spacing out, knew it reminded me of something else!
Shot on Gameboy
That b&w security cam is pretty sharp, even over composite
FinalBaton
We did use Video camera, printed them, scanned them in color on LISA or Mac, 1985 machines, full color! Able to file them on floppy disk, able to import in home computers to, or transfer to cassette audio tapes in digital formats, modem style....
i know better than some these days 😂😂😂
A lot of old analog cameras were only held back by the video output limitations of the time. They’re quite capable for what they were.
Since there's no chroma signal, it's not even technically composite anymore. It's just the luma signal to get you greyscale video. That's why it's so sharp. It's when you mix in the chroma signal that things start to get kinda fuzzy over composite.
Exactly. I was surprised too by the quality!
Flip-flops? NAND gates? Timers? how long till Sethbling recreates the circuit in Minecraft?
mfaizsyahmi. - Hahaha! 🤣
the analog video camera would probably be the hardest part. ;)
I've seen video rendered inside Minecraft using different colored wool, for sure that circuit could be made inside Minecraft!
that moment when you realize he has already made a camera in minecraft like 2 years ago
Ghi102 - Good for you! 😆
Love your videos! I'm so happy you're releasing content more frequently.
same
same :D
Same
Fox Anders Video was posted 25 minutes ago, but your comment was posted 4 hours ago, I can't deal with RUclips
"highlighted comments" are the comments to wich you got linked when you clicked on the notification (the bell in the upper right corner).
As a proud C64 owner I would like to thank you for presenting all those rarities and I don't mind if you show more of them for C64 in the future. Cheers :)
I highly recommend you to check the band Welle Erdball. They are from Germany and use the classical C-64 as synthesisers to make music.
Btw: The whole subgenre they play is called Bitpop.
Worth a listen!
That picture quality was soo nostalgic. It really reminded me about the gameboy camera! Back when i was in highschool me and my girlfriend used to each have the gameboy camera and we would snap photos of each other and sometimes at night we take photos of ourselves and the next morning we would see them.
Sexy photos?
More Commodore stuff...on friday...what else do a 41 years old nerd needs?
nothing else... I
Lord Alfajor a wife
I already have one.
I was thinking that... he thinks we mind!
I think Commodore Friday could become a thing.
I freaked out when I saw "New from The 8-bit Guy" on my notification bar lmao
lel
Same omg I was like I'm not watching youtube I'm busy now, maybe this one video. xD
The production quality of your recent videos has been fantastic, above broadcast quality. Can't wait to see what you've got planned!
So if you're 8 bit and your wife is 8 bit is your daughter 16-bit?
he's Atari, his wife is the NES, the daughter is the Turbografx
That would 9 bits :)
They combine with an AND bitwise operation
8 x 8 == 64, so his daughter is obviously 64bit
and i'm 128 bit cus i was born in the mid 2000's :]
Great stuff! I never owned a Commodore so I'm always interested in learning more about it.
Same. 😂
Me too, i always wanted to learn some stuff about commodore keyboards
me too
Me too
I don't know why anybody would give thumbs down :( Your videos are entertaining, informative and contain tech-stuff. What would you want more? Keep up your gr8 work.
Homer Simpson I totally agree!!!
Probably Apple fans who are mad that he doesn't do all Mac stuff anymore.
Dargonhuman
I'm an apple fan and I like this video.-.
There are people that will just randomly thumb down.
Incredible (and not that incredible at all), yes, there are some lone stupid YT users doing that all the time
Seriously, this guy sharing info/trivia/content is one of the best here!!
Now capture a color photo using filters!
For a total of 9 colors!
@@xnamkcor 8 colors not counting the gradients. 000-111 is 0-7 so 8 in all. Black, red, green, yellow, blue, magenta, cyan, and white.
@@buddyclem7328 What are we doing? I forget.
neoqueto Yes!
@@xnamkcor here's the reminder.
I hear a lot of RUclipsrs say they will be uploading more, but I've never seen anything even close to this! You're releasing videos at light speed while still maintaining the same quality. It's crazy
Awesome! When I was a kid, we had 'Micro-Imager' for the Macintosh, basically the same thing... Box with two knobs, video input... We captured from a ridiculously large B&W Panasonic security camera. I'd capture dithered 1-bit images of my LEGOs and construct little storybooks in FullPaint. :D Come to think of it, we had a _lot_ of weird stuff... (Including a Thunderscan 'ribbon' for our wide-carriage ImageWriter.)
Those date codes imply that capture device was built circa 1987.
My Dad and I spent hours and hours digitizing the family album with the DCTV digitizer, RGB color wheel, the first camcorder in the family, and the mighty Amiga 500. I thought that thing was like magic. Actually did a lot of good scans and even a few short HAM6 color animations in Deluxe Paint 4 taken from VHS tape (my Dad and uncle were into A/V equipment then and had VCRs that could hold a very stable pause.)
Thanks for the great video.
Don't worry about Commodore 'Overload'. You always focus on the peripheral, so it's easy to forget that its a sudo commodore video!
Keep up the great work. I was born in 91, so I've never had hands on experience with a lot of this 80's and earlier technology .
Back in 1984?
And you say that with a security camera in front of you!
ahahahha didn't noticed that, doubleplusgood comment Sir
vidyaWolf I don't use Twitter, so I didn't know that..however.. _WAT_
You should try Neo-Bolshevism guys, it's really fun!
Well, The camera was a prime example of what can be captured
@vidyaWolf deer god? isn't that a spelling error? dear god, no respect for deers nowadays!
I was just using my easycap the other day and this question popped up in my mind. Of course the 8-bit guy has got me covered
To be honest, the video digitiser really makes an artistic "pixel art" of anything IRL that you captured, especially your face @ 5:47 . It looks really cool to have your face like that.
The first time I had my picture taken with a digital camera it was using a device like this hooked up to an Apple IIe. I then printed it out on a dot matrix printer and took it home to my mom. I think she still has it somewhere. It was very cool circa 1986.
Don't worry! You are not overloading on C64 (and others)! I can only speak for my self though, but beeing born 1990 and having access to computers since 2000 had me missing out on that magical beginning era for computers. So for me i do suck up every little information about those old machines i can get! (Same goes for your music channel :)) To this day, i never found any of your videos uninteresting, so keep up the good work!
Greetings from Germany :)
PS: i saw an 8-level capture option in the program. i really would like to see a picture made with this mode, that is if you have time for it ;)
It's easy to doze off to this guy, i love his content and always wish for more.
Your videos are exceptional. I have learned immensely from your channel. Things I did not knew even existed, let alone how they worked. You should be on the History channel.
Are you kidding me, keep doing Commodore videos, I love them!!!. It is also awesome that you included your family on this video.
So glad I found this channel. It brings back so many fond memories of my childhood, and reminds me of how much we take for granted now. Would love to see some ZX Spectrum stuff in the future, as it was massive in the UK.
Blowing my mind with retro tech. I know so little.
I'm kind of disappointed you never did any 8-level captures. At least none that you explicitly mention. Would've been interesting to see the comparison to the 4-level and single-level capture.
You should youtube this: 8088 Corruption vs. 8088 Domination
Well, i did several. I just didn't show it in the video. The 8-Level took an entire minute per capture and I couldn't really see any difference between it and the 4-level. I probably should have mentioned that.
Well, thanks for letting me know. :)
You are one of the "good guys" on RUclips (sometimes that can few and far between). I enjoy your content and I am glad that I am subscribed to you.
Seems like you have a real nice family there as well, David. I'm glad that they participated with you this time. Wishing you and them all the best this year.
This is so humbling, just look how far technology has come, just get your smartphone out your pocket and take an ultra high quality picture in a fraction of a second. Looking at this kind of videos always makes me grateful of the technology we are surrounded
With those wiggly PCB traces, this looks like from the 60s-70s.
Smaller companies and hobbyists actually did PCB layout by hand WELL into the '80s. This one looks entirely hand-drawn even (usually there'd be sets of templates / decals to use). The newest device I spotted an oldschool layout in was a Rotel A/V preamplifier from like 1992, which I found rather baffling.
And drawing straight lines by hand is impossible? Didn't they have
rulers or templates? Architects and engineers also drew by hand in the
past and still managed to draw straight lines.
I was actually going to come here to comment on how it looked hand-drawn. Very fascinating stuff.
you don't need straight lines.... and last I saw hobbyists still draw and etch PCBs by hand.
The more organic 'hand-drawn' layout was not uncommon even into the 1990s, despite even hobbyists having access to things like rub-on transfers of PCB layout elements. Hell, if the project calls for/allows it, I like to use the 'curvy' traces in EAGLE when laying out something, just because I find it super aesthetically-pleasing for relatively simple boards.
Great video, and you are not overloading anyone i guess, nobody can be overloaded from watching good videos.
Great video as always, You do great educational work on these older pieces of hardware. The way you present information makes it easy to understand.
I love watching your videos. I don't have any experience with any of the products you work with but it is fun to learn about things that paved the way for technology today. You probably never thought your love for technology would build you a successful RUclips channel. Keep up the good work!
Do you think you could make some of those photos downloadable? I really liked the ones of the Rubik's cube and the Mac. Also thank you for your dedication, your videos always interest me!
I wish I had. I should have saved them to disk, but I figured since I had them on video capture, I wouldn't need the original files. After I was done with the video, it occurred to me I could have put them on a .D64 and uploaded them to my website. Oh well.
The 8-Bit Guy All good man. I really love the video! Keep it up!
Danny Drummer just screen shot the video while in fullscreen
CreeperGuy555 yes but then there will be some compression from the screenshots
Denyul Music not really, just RUclips compression.
Digitizing video has been driving me insane. Modern devices have a significant problem syncing audio and video. As a TV archivist working with zero budget this drives me insane. It's costing me nearly $500 in devices when in the past all I needed was a single device when working with VHS tapes.
Growing up with a C64 and later Amiga 500, I can never get too much of that. Love all of your videos
Got your soundtrack CD in the mail earlier this week; love it! Always cool videos, keep up the great work!
As a matter of fact, there was a hand scanner for the c64 www.c64-wiki.de/wiki/Handyscanner_64
great... now I'm going to have to try to find one of those!
haha
I saw an article in Antic (Atari 8-bits) that made it possible to use your dot matrix printer to scan images. It had plans for a light pickup that attached to the print head to do the scanning.
Actually these printer scanner was built by the same company how have made the above mentioned Handyscanner 64. The scanner were named Superscanner II and III. The manufacturer was a German company called Scanntronic. www.c64-wiki.de/wiki/Scanntronik
I had one of these! You tape a fibre-optic wire to an old print cartridge, and the scanning software drove the print head back and forth while raising the page a bit at a time.
You had to tape the image to be scanned to some form-feed paper so it would not move around during the process.
It did a surprisingly good job of B&W scanning, but risky to damage the originals.
The fibre-optic wires plugged into the cartridge port.
I love it now new episodes come every few days! :)
Please overwhelm us with C64 videos, I can't get enough! Keep them coming
YES PLEASE, please keep producing these "How [blank] Worked" videos! its not only super informative, but you actually make these very entertaining to watch!
Everyone new here, i recommend checking 8-bits older How ... worked videos, like the one about 8 bit graphics etc :)
His bender shirt makes me miss fururama :(
Yeah :,(
Dat NSYNC joke
I'm really loving this output speed! I knew it would go up with the patreon but I didn't expect it to be by such a big degree, on this channel and 8-bit keys!
It's hard to come by a genuine RUclips channel like yours... keep up the great work! :) You're inspiring my man! See you in the next video!
I like your commodore videos
I like turtles
His family looks so tired of him lol.
Sunny Nexxt yeah :) they are like: ohhh, more computer stuff again :) what? I must sit still for how many minut... eee... seconds? :) Best to all your family... yours and 8bit Guy family :)
Loving this stuff. Also giving me a lot more confidence in breaking open some of this old gear and either restoring or tinkering.
I absolutely love your channels, esp 8 bit keys. I've got a collection of old Yamaha stuff from cheap pss 130 toy right up to the modern stuff psr s650 and my latest aquisition a moXF6 which is a fantastic bit of kit which has a 800MB wavetable!!! When you think when the SY-99 and SY-85 came out 25 years ago they only 2MB or 4MB of sample memory!!! Keep up the good work mate, always informative & bloody interesting!
Ha! If you have one of these today, you're still a computer god! ;-)
coz it's rare,,,
😊😊
Could you capture color with this using the same trick you used with the your Connectix Quickcam? Were there paint programs that allowed you to combine images in that way on the C64? I remember that you could buy a still frame capture cards for later computers. I used one in high school on a Mac IIci to get images from an analog Video Disc camera.
It would have been theoretically possible, but I'm not familiar with any software that would have done it back then. I suppose somebody could write one now, but seems kind of too late.
Interesting concept, but even where things are theoretically possible, it doesn't mean anyone attempted it back then, or even thought of it.
Have you seen the demos for thousands of colours using CGA composite artifacts?
Given the hardware the demo runs on it would have been theoretically possible to do that in 1981 on an IBM 5150...
But when you actually look at what was involved in calculating the colour shifts from various timing and symbol combinations...
It required hours of calculations on a modern PC to work out.
So that wouldn't have been possible in 1981 ironically because it would have taken too much computing power to work out how to do it. even if once you have figured it out you can run it on such hardware.
In this case, I guess first of all someone would have had to think of that technique, then have the inclination and technical skills to implement suitable software...
And then it would actually had to have been distributed quite widely for anyone nowadays to even be able to figure out now that such software even existed.
"kind of", LOL.
So, if there was no way to work with the image, what was the point of the device?
Just watched a video you did in '07. Wow how the quality has changed albeit just as interesting.
Thanks!
Wow...this video shows me how long I've been watching you. Your daughter grew up SOOO much! Keep the videos coming!!
Really? Wow, in what other video his daughter appears?
What did the software for the digitiser come on? I don't see any ROM, so I guess it had to be either a floppy or a tape.
Keep showing off what you want and forget about the haters that whine about what content your channel is "supposed to be showing" and just be true to yourself!!!
Your videos rock man. I never owned a commodore 64 and I still love to watch every single one of your videos. You have a fantastic method for conveying information.
Keep up the great work. :)
thanks for uploading more frequently! I use your videos to sorta chill and relax, unwind etc
It's a good way for me to zone out from university stress. so thanks and keep up the good work
Please make Imac G3 disassembly video, please!!!
I want to clean it inside from a ton of dust, but I can' open it (afraid of breaking the snaps).
He has taken one of those apart to make it into a cat tree.
re: Laserdisks...still frames only work if the disk is in CAV format. CLV doesn't pause that way.
thedungeondelver also, almost all laserdisc films are CLV, so not pauseable. Some longer films that span on to a 2nd disc might have one side CAV.
Right; I tried to pick and choose when I bought LDs sets that were CAV only; the Criterion _Akira_ disk (as so many others, as well from them) and the _Star Wars: The Definitive Collection_ sets were particular treats. :)
Some later players will give you freeze frames on CLV. Only field doubled half vertical res, but it would have worked well for this. That said, they didn't exist when this capture device would have been a thing..
Your videos are really interesting, I'm glad you're releasing more of them. Keep up the great work
I really love your channel I highly enjoy how these older technologies worked and you have a lot of really great tips as well
what is the brand/model of his glasses?
So is the 4-level capture the 80's version of HDR?
Vincent Pellegrini kinda
I love your videos man! keep them coming, I'm glad you decided to go full time!
Hey, don't worry if you have more Commodore 64 videos; the Commodore 64 is awesome, and just seeing what it can do is always a treat, especially from you.
I swear your voice sounds digital =]
And that is what makes him very listenable. I'm hard of hearing and have to wear digital hearing aids and for some reason his voice seems "compatible" with them!
it's great because youtube notifications actually works now i think.
they still pop up 10 minutes too late
I can live with a 10minute delay. the video has to get copied to multiple servers to be available worldwide.
This isn't one of the sorts of channels they suppress.
Am I the only one to get problems in the comments.
Clicking 'read more' does nothing.
The C64 is white supremacy?
Great as always, thank you very much for your effort, devotion and work as a whole.
Cheers!
That Rubik's cube @5:26 is like art! You should sample that in some of your intros, closings, etc.. :)
Your daughter was like "Lemme go back to Facebook already"
That needs to be her profile pic :)
Looks like a cool ig filter
8-Bit Guy, 8-Bit Wife, and 8-Bit Daughter all look the same!
Lol they do
I mean, they are a family so that makes some sense
8-bit guy 1kb lady and 8gb daughter
That's how 8-bit DNA works
Great vid as always. Love the consistent updates
Hey David, I love your videos and you are doing a great job. Greatings from the UK
OMG RUclips HAS CHANGED WHAT IS THIS
RUclips.. RUclips NEVER CHANGES..
sofias. orange You must be new then... back in the day, we rated with stars instead of thumbs :D
...SOMEONE needs to play Fallout, methinks :P
I made the mistake to start with FO4... Also i take swords over machine guns in games anytime :D
Yeah, the line "War... war never changes" comes from the intro to Fallout 1-3, if memory serves. Don't know if they used it in Fallout 4's intro, but I'm guessing they didn't.
Friendly tip to 8-Bit Guy, make your videos 10 minutes long you will have more ad revenue. Thats how youtube works today.
But then people will call him a money hungry piece of shit for extending his videos to 10 minutes.
In the late 1970s/early 80s, there were shopping-mall kiosks where they had something like this set up that could digitize your portrait in that miserable 1-bit dithered way and then print it onto a T-shirt while you waited.
In that late-70s, David H. Ahl sort of era, the word "digitizer" sometimes referred to a peripheral that would let you turn a drawing into a set of coordinate pairs by tracing it with a cursor on a hinged arm, so I thought initially that that was what you were talking about.
I too am happy you are releasing more videos. This digitizer is cool, never seen one in action (born in 82, so I think that makes sense)
Is it a K9 at 5:23?
Tom Baker didn't pay the ransom
*Yes, **_master!_*
Affirmative.
Why did you change your channel name? I forgot it was you IBookGuy.
He doesnt do just ibooks anymore; he has e v o l v e d
Really like how you are uploading more frequently! Keep it up!
Thank you, 8-bit guy. Another excellent, informative, and entertaining video, well done.
Why did pausing VHS always cause all those artifacts?
Because the playback head continues to spin.
The video heads record on the tape whilst it is moving, in pause with the tape stationary the flying heads on the drum don't exactly line up with tracks originally recorded. Professional video tape records can dynamically position the heads as the head drum spins for all those 1980's and 90's perfect variable speed + freeze frame, reverse slow motion effects.
Coolkeys2009 thanks for the very succinct explanation. I even googled for one, and sorta got the idea, but you made it click with mentioning the recording part.
A dislike already?
His daughter for using her face as a photo
Vax Buster lol
please don't insult her
Vax Buster why don't you play a nice game of hide and go fuck yourself?
Pumyra Thundercat what are on about?
Love all the content coming out now that you're a full timer. Great stuff.
Your channel presents one of the best content about retro gaming on RUclips.
notification squad
Please, please just never go the way of Jayztwocents or Linus tech tips and include ads in the videos.. that's all I ask.
It'll probably never happen because he doesn't have to pay an entire team or an assistant.
My father took a portrait of my mother using a 16-bit monochrome digitizer on his Amiga (2800 I think?), then penciled a grid of 1/8" squares and proceeded to mix 16 distinct shades of black and white paint. Two weeks later, he converted the image to 8-bit, bought a new canvas, but the final product was still really awesome!
Dude David you are totally killing it! I love all the new content, and it's all so high quality and well done! I predict your channel(s) will double in subscribers in 2017!
Computers were so terrible back in the day...
Fascinating clip 8 Bit Guy! It's truly amazing to see what technology was like only 3 decades ago... Thanks for sharing!
You'll never overload me with Commodore vids. My parents got me one in 1983, when I was 2 years old, and those are my first memories. I still emulate Jumpman on modern hardware.
If you ever get Randy Glover as a guest, you will have a subscriber forever. :)
I'm absolutely loving these more frequent uploads!!!
This makes me think of the old NewTek Digi-View setups on the Amiga. The camera was monochrome, but you managed to get color images by taking 3 separate scans through a color-wheel filter in order to get your RGB levels.
Love the frequent content. Keep them coming!
Thanx man. Im very fascinated by your content. Im born in 1983 so alot of "atari age" stuff was still lingering around when i was a little kid.
Love the show!!! Keep the videos coming!