Hello.

I posted this on the SELEM thread but didn't get any bites.

I have a few Image Engineering 2u rackmount decoders that take video feed in and drive two projectors. These decode digital data stored in the video signal of specially written tapes and drive up to two scanners. It's R+G+B+X+Y and 3 TTL outputs I believe. I've documented elsewhere on here for the technical side, I was working on doing USB takeoff of the data and got up to the point where I need to do AVR code with interrupts to grok the timing and deal with glitches.

These are late 80s units, the speed isn't anything crazy (I think I figured it to be 14kpps maximum with 1 scanner half that for two I can't remember. VERY EARLY.)

I bought my first decoder/encoder set and tape collection from a fellow PL member. BUT, in this adventure I was lucky enough to receive a number of extra decoders (and a few encoders) for free.

I'd like to put some of this in the hands of other people interested in laser show hardware, historical stuff, people that will geek around and make use of it.

If you're in the USA, and interested, I'm thinking shipping and handling of maybe $25-30 and what I will do is copy off a VHS tape or two (SP speed, 2 hours each) of stuff and that should cover shipping it. There is errors in the content I have so the frames have some noise in them, but it's shows!

I recently got a 3/4" umatic deck so need to start dumping all of the shows on the 3/4" tapes.

There is errors in the data from the beta tapes that cause some noise in the shows. There is audio, there is laser content. It's neat stuff. It's mostly corporate shows and what not, some repetition.

I have one encoder where input voltage exceeded 5vdc on the ADC channel and it quit working. If anyone is interested (seriously) in repairing this you can get an encoder with your decoder. Once it's working it just sends composite video out and as data on the XYRGB channels is driven you see it.

I have tried capturing the data to a DVD/HDD recorder but there is a rolling effect because the time base correction seems to be duplicating a frame or two. I used a complex set of SDI to computer transfer and hit strange issues with the composite to SDI box not wanting to sync so I think the timing of the frame rate from the encoders is slightly off of NTSC spec and VCRs are totally cool with this? Not sure. It might be possible to change the timing in the encoder and get it dead on and the decoders would be fine with the extra data, using dvd as storage, not sure. Given the way this works it *might* be possible to software generate the video data. It's crazy and awesome the way it works. There is no processor in the decoder, but it's digital :-)

Anyhow I type fast so forgive the long post :-)

I need to stack up list of people interested, then order some more blank video tapes.

So let me know if there is interest. I want to put them in the hands of people who are interested in history, not people that are going to flip them on ebay.

I'm in Northern Virginia so if you're local we can skip the shipping charges.