Decoding PXL-2000 Tapes

Using PHP to decode a PXL-2000 cassette tape’s video signal from 1990 digitized in 2005, I try to hunt down a scary moment in the footage where an eyeball appears in the corner of the screen. The results are lackluster, to say the least. I get little more than a lot of static and a vague shape in the corner of the video but the decoding process is successful even if the video signal had degraded beyond recognition. (I know that model of the PXL-2000 isn’t terribly accurate. It was slapped together in Sketchup in about 10 minutes) 0:00 Introduction 0:15 Brief technical overview of the PXL-2000 1:27 The tale of the tape (how it was digitized) 2:11 What the PXL-2000 tape video signal sounds like 3:22 Technical analysis of the PXL-2000 video signal 4:42 Mentioning the PHP-based decoder script I made 5:30 The results of the decoding attempt 6:16 Eyeball story 7:06 So, what’s on the tape? 7:13 Discussing the reverse process to re-create the eyeball 7:18 The re-created eyeball video (from memory) 7:37 Demonstration of the software-generated PXL-2000 video signal 7:59 Why the tape’s video signal was so unrecognizable 8:25 Conclusion The PHP code used to perform the conversion: