June 1st, 2021

Hey all, Alan here! School is finally over.

I recently won an auction for a miniDV cassette deck on Yahoo Auctions. I've been aiming to get a DV deck for a bit now. I need a way to record stuff from my retro gaming setup. I can't use my Elgato because the CRT display I use doesn't have any HDMI inputs and the Elgato makes analog input look way uglier...

It's a Panasonic NV-DM1 deck! It's a small box but it has a lot of features. There's 2 input connections, 3 output connections, 2 DV connectors, it's full of stuff.

I got it in about a week and checked it out. The tape mechanism doesn't work. It will put in the tape with an amount of force, take out the tape, and shut off. I checked it out and I believe the deck isn't turning the tape properly, which will require some servicing which is totally out of my league. The DV out port works just fine. I'll just use that to record off this thing. I'm a bit dissapointed, but I got this for way cheaper than usual, so what did I expect?

If I really did want to record on tape, I can use one of the DV ports to output a signal to my Sony camcorder. It's more tidier, only requiring 1 cable between the two devices. I also can do the opposite and have my camcorder signal transmit to the deck. Of course, I can transmit signals to a PC and record to a hard drive, which is more convenient.

Here is a recording from a PS2 via composite. Despite using composite video, it looks way better than my Elgato on component! I wonder how it'll look if I reached the decks maximum and used S-Video...

I only have S-Video cables for my Xbox that I found at Goodwill for $5. I want some cables for my other consoles, but they're so expensive. I want some for my Nintendo 64 and Super Famicom, but they're a lot. I think it's because of GameCube owners wanting the piece of the pie aswell. PlayStation cables go for sale occasionally, so I might be able to get my hands on those.

Sega cables though? Absolutely insane. I believe Sega did not release any official S-Video cables outside of Japan. I'm gonna have to find a cheap listing on Yahoo Auctions or hope third-party cables don't do the cheap route of pushing composite video over S-Video. Did the Sega Genesis even get S-Video? I looked online and all I can see is mods for an S-Video connector. I'm guessing not.

I recently got a full combo on beatmania IIDX!! It's a song I've been listening to for a while. Despite that, my score wasn't as high as my previous score. I've been trying to full combo other songs, but I usually get a few misses. The game has been taunting me with an 'ALMOST FULL COMBO CLEAR' category too!

Aside from trying to redo the songs I accidentally played with scratch assist, I've been doing the Dan courses. I've been doing them slowly since I'm scared of getting murdered. I'm at 4th Kyu (四級) and it was pretty easy... Next time I play, I'll try doing something a little more difficult.

I spent time doing all of this for a goat hat on my character.

I also tried DanceDanceRevolution for the first time later. I did pretty alright for the beginner difficulties, but I did horrible on Rejoin... but it was pretty fun. I should play it again next time I go.

The best part of it was wondering why nobody played on the gold cabinet, only to find out one of the panels are busted. Sweet. I'm pretty sure the techs already know about it, maybe they're focusing on fixing other things before fixing the DDR cabinet.