Karaoke Cassettes With a Hidden Data Signal 

Repaired a Sony Betacam deck recently, lots of LEDs on the front panel, each with a rubber-like shroud to support the LED and prevent light spillage. Almost every one had turned hard and corrosive. Entire LED leads disolved, circuit board traces disolved. Horrible mess 😭 It's a shame that so many faults/breakdowns are caused by aging rubber and plastic parts & glues while 99.9% of the machine could virtually last forever!

Good point. Also, this machine like many karaoke machines has a pitch control, I presume the pitch control adjusts the motor speed and doesn't apply any kind of digital signal processing or digital pitch control or time scale modification or anything like that, so, would adjusting the tape speed cause data corruption too?

Lachlant1984 it sounds like there are plenty of timing/guard bits to enable it to decode at any intended speed.

Since they used such a cheap drive, it's likely that the variations in tape speed are already bad without the pitch control. For this reason typical ways to record data onto audio casettes have a large margin of error when it comes to speed. Essentially they typically record some way to recover the clock from the tape. For more details I can recommend the book "TV Typewriter Cookbook" which the Author Don Lancester has put online on his website.

It is certainly true that MCU manufacturers would use custom IC numbers for such preprogrammed ROM versions of their common devices.

Should I do a Karaoke video where I sing it?

databits a huhhuh as Elvis would say. Go for it!!!!! :)

CD+G was a thing but that system was never a cheap one.

Yes, it needs more jacks on the back panel!! Like a Tape Out (instead of speaker out), a Line In for recording from CD, and a composite video out would be nice. And thanks for watching it!

Right on... you're welcome :)

As he mentioned, there's one version of each song with sung lyrics and one version without.

Also, weren't these given away as prizes on Double Dare?

Jason B Oh, they were! I recall a "Singalodeon" unit being plugged but it may not have been one of these on-screen deals.

Jerry Spann You probably could, but you'll only get the audio. You would need to capture the output from one of these decks to get the lyric track.

I would imagine you'd need a 4 track copy deck (one that copies both sides at once) to insure best sync with all tracks.

If you copied one of those cassettes on a dual cassette deck you would get the audio only and not the data for the on screen display, since the data for on screen display is recorded on the other 2 tracks of the tape where side B is normally recorded and most audio cassette decks are not designed to play and record all four of these tracks at once but there are a few exceptions. There are some cassettes duplication machines and a few home double cassette decks that are designed to duplicate both sides at one, basically playing and recording side B backwards while playing and recording side A forwards to save turning over the tape, or using auto reverse to record side B separately if the machine has auto reverse therefore saving time. They have four heads in one instead of just two for stereo. Some auto reverse machines that don’t rotate the heads to play the other side have these exact same heads and both heads and tape work in both direction. There is a way to copy one of those karaoke cassettes on a normal double audio cassette deck that might work however. Once you have copied side A to the end of the recording - not the end of the tape, stop both decks at exactly the same time, turn both the tapes over to side B even though you’re not meant to play side B, then from that exact same spot where you stopped both tapes (without FF or Rew Esther) synchro start recording there which will play and recorded the data for on screen display backwards, which should work as normal when playing in a Karaoke machine before having both played and recorded backwards when copying with cancell each other out. Just make sure that the cassette deck and the blank tape you use is of decent quality so that the data isn’t corrupted through.

Now that's a thought!

Those Polaroid TV's rock. I've had 2 of them for more than 3 years and they still deliver.

Jan Christian Ursua Aguilar There were plenty of these in the 90's.

Christopher Sobieniak oh you think?

I used to see them in stores.

Thanks Jan.

Interesting idea! Perhaps the Midi code could be decoded via the Midi Out jack?

Thanks Mr. Mike

Why would it be labeled "Midi"

But if you dubbed side B backwards to another tape's side B, it'd be recorded backwards also, meaning it'd be the right way around when played normally on side A?

mipmipmipmipmip syncing would be a problem, but how about a portastudio? Like one of those fostex ones that run at normal speed, you could dub the tracks in real time?

You're welcome.

Good price at 75% off?

🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺🍺