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sstv

the embrace of old, depricated, technology

so my band has a show coming up, and i wanted to sell some diy cassette tapes with like 2 demos on them for like $2. but i wanted to do something special and interesting, more for me than anything, and thats when i remembered my old friend SSTV.

I've know about SSTV since about 2018, i think its the coolest thing ever. if you don't know what SSTV is it stands for Slow Scan Television, it's basically a way of encoding images as sound. It was originally created for use with ham radios.

wikipedia page for SSTV

my first exposure to SSTV

i first found out about SSTV via my obsession with cassette tapes, and their limitations. i wanted to find a way to put images onto tapes, i loved anologue distortion, and i wanted to know what i could do with what i had. as i was really into databending at the time, i first tried record a bmp image from audacity onto a tape, and then back into audacity, saving it back into a bmp. this did not work. i ended up with corrupted files, not even visible. i was very disapointed, but i turned to google to see if anyone had tried doing anything similar before, and huzah someone had! i downloaded MMSSTV (which i believe is sadly closed source) and i got the results i was looking for! i've included some below (all robot36):

2022-07-24/trees.jpg

2022-07-24/stop.jpg

2022-07-24/cat.jpg

after these experiments, using pictures i hadn't even taken, i kinda forgot about SSTV, putting it in my backpocket for the future. which is now ! although i have not yet put any of my/my bandmates pictures onto tapes to be sold, I did download an sstv decoder app on my phone (robot36 android) and play some SSTV signals out of my computer speakers, and got some very interesting results!

2022-07-24/house-robot36.png

2022-07-24/bus_stop-scottie1.png

that's realy all i have to share today, i think SSTV is facinating, and i plan on doing more with it in the future! i will update if i end up selling tapes encoded with SSTV! if you thought this was cool, end up trying anything for urself, or have anything else to share please don't heasitate to reach out!