> I understand that perhaps a VCR is not the highest
> speed, best device around - but the cost makes it attractive.

Since you still need some hardware digitizing and interpreting the video
signal, how about using and IDE disk drive instead?  It can't be that hard
to make a little micro drive an IDE bus enough to grab streaming data from a
disk.  This has sufficient bandwidth to handle all the audio and control
information.

On the other hand, by the time you do all this, wouldn't it be a lot cheaper
to use a laptop with a sound card?  The audio is produced by the sound card
directly, and the control signals could be emitted via serial port to a PIC
that directly controls the hardware.

> So here is my
> idea - given that one frame consists of 512 horizontal lines,

Actually there are supposed to be 525 lines, of which about 486 (+-3 ?) are
displayable.  The remaining lines are during the vertical retrace interval
because the horizontal oscillator keeps running.  Remember, this was
designed to drive analog tank and deflection circuits directly.


********************************************************************
Olin Lathrop, embedded systems consultant in Littleton Massachusetts
(978) 742-9014, olin@embedinc.com, http://www.embedinc.com

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