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cw: ranting, old man shakes fist at cloud First, "Datassette" has nothing to do with tape-based storage for the C64, and now "VHS" has nothing to do with tape-

cw: ranting, old man shakes fist at cloud First, "Datassette" has nothing to do with tape-based storage for the C64, and now "VHS" has nothing to do with tape-based storage for video. This is a nice project with cool results, but we're not out of names for things. Is nothing sacred?

classichasclass 4y ago
I was kind of hoping we were using analysis of VHS movie frames to accurately reconstruct those movie terminal interfaces. But it's still interesting work.
skyyler 4y ago
It seems too obvious to state but... No, nothing is sacred. Burn your idols.
bee_rider 4y ago
Similarly, nowadays tar is only very rarely used to archive to tapes. Actually it is not really that similar because I think this VHS command is pretty recent and was never used to record to actual VHS, but it is still a funny contrast.
switchbak 4y ago
It took me far too long to understand what you were saying. I actually thought he was recording and playing back his terminal via an actual VHS and thought ... jeesh these kids really pine for the 80's! Nope ... more overlaying different words in different contexts. We need a commune for old neckbeards that want out of this crazyness.
deleted 4y ago
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alias_neo 4y ago
I feel like the blog post is at fault for not introducing VHS, more so than the tool itself for calling itself that. Of course, for something as ubiquitously known as VHS it needs no introduction...except it's not actually talking about the magnetic storage format, it's a "tool" named VHS[0]. All of that aside, it seems like a poor alternative to asciinema[1] [0] https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs [1] https://asciinema.org/ https://asciinema.org/
- stavros 4y ago
  It does seem like a poor alternative, but people love gifs, for some reason. I have half a mind to make something like this repo just to set someone up for a "beware the Greeks bearing gifs" pun.
reaperducer 4y ago
we're not out of names for things In addition to people repurposing existing words, I've noticed a lot of older words becoming common again. - "Gaslighting" is from the 1920's. - "Baller" is from at least the late 1940's. - "Fly" is from the 1880's. At least recycling words is better than someone inventing new words to make up for having a poor vocabulary. Ex: Tastemaker → Trendsetter → Influencer
- marssaxman 4y ago
  "Crypto" is from the 1990s, but now has a completely different meaning.
SanjayMehta 4y ago
Same here. I was intrigued that someone had hacked a recorder to do something scifi and discovered it was a script. Still have a VHS machine, doubt it works though.
rkagerer 4y ago
I'm sad it had nothing to do with actual VHS cartridges. Had expected some kind of retro hack project.
- walrus01 4y ago
  As a software project I was expecting it to be something like, a NTSC VHS tape emulation tool to do something like run a "modern" video through ffmpeg and output something that looks like a 240p recorded VHS tape.
  - anthk 4y ago
    Just encode it to 320x240 MPEG1 video with MP2 audio.
    - walrus01 4y ago
      doesn't quite achieve the same soft blurry effect as analog video recorded at 4-hour-speed onto a long VHS tape back in the day.
      - anthk 4y ago
        I still have some Asterix pirate VHS movies here. On the blurryness, you are right, but the video quality it's close. Maybe someone could split the movies intro images (ffmpeg), apply a random dithering/blur to every image with imagemagick and rebuild the video again with ffmpeg.

classichasclass 4y ago

I was kind of hoping we were using analysis of VHS movie frames to accurately reconstruct those movie terminal interfaces. But it's still interesting work.

skyyler 4y ago

It seems too obvious to state but... No, nothing is sacred. Burn your idols.

bee_rider 4y ago

Similarly, nowadays tar is only very rarely used to archive to tapes. Actually it is not really that similar because I think this VHS command is pretty recent and was never used to record to actual VHS, but it is still a funny contrast.

switchbak 4y ago

It took me far too long to understand what you were saying. I actually thought he was recording and playing back his terminal via an actual VHS and thought ... jeesh these kids really pine for the 80's! Nope ... more overlaying different words in different contexts. We need a commune for old neckbeards that want out of this crazyness.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

alias_neo 4y ago

I feel like the blog post is at fault for not introducing VHS, more so than the tool itself for calling itself that. Of course, for something as ubiquitously known as VHS it needs no introduction...except it's not actually talking about the magnetic storage format, it's a "tool" named VHS[0]. All of that aside, it seems like a poor alternative to asciinema[1] [0] https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs https://github.com/charmbracelet/vhs [1] https://asciinema.org/ https://asciinema.org/

stavros 4y ago
It does seem like a poor alternative, but people love gifs, for some reason. I have half a mind to make something like this repo just to set someone up for a "beware the Greeks bearing gifs" pun.

reaperducer 4y ago

we're not out of names for things In addition to people repurposing existing words, I've noticed a lot of older words becoming common again. - "Gaslighting" is from the 1920's. - "Baller" is from at least the late 1940's. - "Fly" is from the 1880's. At least recycling words is better than someone inventing new words to make up for having a poor vocabulary. Ex: Tastemaker → Trendsetter → Influencer

marssaxman 4y ago
"Crypto" is from the 1990s, but now has a completely different meaning.

SanjayMehta 4y ago

Same here. I was intrigued that someone had hacked a recorder to do something scifi and discovered it was a script. Still have a VHS machine, doubt it works though.

rkagerer 4y ago

I'm sad it had nothing to do with actual VHS cartridges. Had expected some kind of retro hack project.

walrus01 4y ago
As a software project I was expecting it to be something like, a NTSC VHS tape emulation tool to do something like run a "modern" video through ffmpeg and output something that looks like a 240p recorded VHS tape.
- anthk 4y ago
  Just encode it to 320x240 MPEG1 video with MP2 audio.
  - walrus01 4y ago
    doesn't quite achieve the same soft blurry effect as analog video recorded at 4-hour-speed onto a long VHS tape back in the day.
    - anthk 4y ago
      I still have some Asterix pirate VHS movies here. On the blurryness, you are right, but the video quality it's close. Maybe someone could split the movies intro images (ffmpeg), apply a random dithering/blur to every image with imagemagick and rebuild the video again with ffmpeg.