this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
405 points (98.8% liked)
Technology
59419 readers
5020 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The Ampex 1" type C video tape recorder needed is rare, but it's not impossible to find one. The NSA could certainly watch the video if they wanted to. The just don't want to go through the effort for a FOIA request.
The article seemed to suggest you could buy them easily on eBay lol
Yes, they do show up on ebay, but usually not in working condition. Then you have to find someone that can do a restoration. Keep in mind that there may only be one chance to play the tape before it falls apart, so the player needs to be working perfectly.
Which means they need a player AND a way to digitize it from that player, so if it does die, it will still be recorded.
Digitizing is the easy part. Even though it's an ancient format, it's still just NTSC composite video and analog audio. You digitize it just like you would a VHS tape.
The zero-effort method of pointing a camera and mic at the screen as it's being played back should be sufficient if they can't do it another way. Given the tape's age, the resolution is unlikely to be high enough to lose significant details that way.