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<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>From: <<A
href="mailto:allanmc-avtech@comcast.net">allanmc-avtech@comcast.net</A></DIV>
<DIV>></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>Allan:</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>I have not given this prior consideration, so these are my
initial reactions in regard to your thoughts. My replies are inserted
below:</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>>SNIP<</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> I'm suggesting non-contact playback! Its being done for other media
such as phono records and we are all familiar with the development of magnetic
tracks for editing. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>A couple of things to consider. With phono records, you are
measuring (with a laser) the physical properties of the grooves. That's
a totally different task from reading magnetic recordings. As far as
the magnetic developer, I believe the particles in the developer are far too
large to resolve the frequencies required.<BR></STRONG><BR>- What do you think?
<BR><BR>- What are the challenges to be overcome? <BR><BR><STRONG>I suspect that
the nature of the video recording will make it extremely difficult to recover
using non-contact magnetic heads. Such an approach obviously works in disc
drives, but the recording process for data is very different from that
used in analog VTR's.<BR></STRONG><BR><STRONG>>SNIP<</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But, couldn't we do better.... with a NEW non-contact method that
potentially would recover everything originally recorded into a recovered and
restored state? <BR></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>While I see problems with the methods you have mentioned, I
certainly would not want to suggest that some thinking "outside the box" might
not come up with a totally new approach. Whether it would be economically
feasible for anyone in the private sector to undertake such a project
is another matter. I doubt that there is enough market to ever recover the
R&D expenses involved. But it would be an interesting
experiment!</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><BR>Just musing........because I think the goal must be to extract the
program information more than it is to just play the tape again in the same way
we used to do it. <BR><BR>Allan McConnell </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG>Don<BR></STRONG></DIV></BODY></HTML>