# The ArVid-1020 card

Written by a well-known pirate, DirkGent@iRC/http://fok.hu/~dirk, who has been using the card for more than one year.

Arvid is a Finnish name, but don't think the card I'm going to introduce is of Finnish origins. It is manufactured in Russia. Russian coders, engineers have proved many times that they're good at inventing new processes of data storage and new ways of programming - look at the astounding success of their Volkov Commander, for example.

Most PC-users are suffering from the lack of a CHEAP mass storage system. Think of the lot of swappers/traders etc... or ppl who collect 'warez'.

A pirate gets some 1-2 GBytes of 'warez' every week and it'd be extremely expensive to write them all on CD-ROMs (even with a pre-selection: to sort out all the betas, all the non-working, non-cracked shits, fake releases).

A DAT is a much better choice if one wants to store all his warez as economically as possible as it offers some 2-4 GB storing capacity on a casette that is only slightly more expensive that raw CDs. So, using CD-ROMs to store new warez is very expensive, even if CD-ROM drives are damn cheap and fast (4* drives cost less than 70-90 US$ in May, 1996!) and almost everybody has CD-writers as well so writing the CDs can't cause any problem.

But there are also arguments against DATs as well. First, the price of DAT drives. Even the oldest models can cost a real fortune (I mean the DDS-1 ones, HP's older modells with 170-200 kB/sec speed), not to mention the faster (500 kB/s), new ones. Also, without warranty getting such a DAT repaired can cost as much as a new drive. Anyway, DATs are widely used and they can be used under different operating systems as well, so their professional usage is also extensive.

But what about 'poor' pirates like me? Well, we had to find an even less expensive solution as we wanted to store everything - even the oldest warez can be handy, so it's better to avoid deleting them. But - to store 7-8 GBytes a month? (not to mention saving/copying full CDs - to store a CD for 1 US$ is quite cool, isn't it? And, in most cases, these games run from hard disks as well). When using CDs, it is incredibly expensive. Storing data on DATs is slightly (approx. 5-6 times) cheaper, but the DAT drive is damn expensive, and, regarding my friends' opinion, breaks down quite regularly. Nevertheless, it's very reliable, even more reliable than CDs - as for me, I bought my first CD-ROM some 3 years ago and my first CDs (7th Guest etc...) have serious problems - read errors, etc.

There are other, quite impressive streamers as well on the market- ExaByte, for example, uses Hi-8 casettes. Actually, they require Hi8-DATA casettes as Sony has just decided to decline the quality of their Hi-8 tapes to force ExaByte users to buy more expensive Hi8-DATA tapes instead. Still, regarding the price of the casette (not much more expensive than a DAT casette) and its storage capacity (some 5 GB on 112m tapes; newer models are able to use 160m XL tapes as well) makes Exabyte a bargain. Well, the price of the drive (3 times higher than those of DATs) is a completely different question :-(

So, pirates had to wait for a REVOLUTIONARY invention. Show me a widely used, tape-based system that COULD store GBytes of information! Philips's Compact Casette? Well, regarding DCC's capabilties, no more than 70-80 MByte. And even this 70-80 MByte is the amount of information that can be stored without error correction. With error correction (up to 3-bit errors) could half this storage capacity. Of course, a drive with rotating heads could store much more data on a simple Compact Casette, but think of the price of the drive itself. What we need is a gadget that can be found in every house. Normal CC casette decks should be forgotten, but what about video recorders? They mean our solution!

There were many attempts to make use of these home videos. I know of some Hungarian cards from 1989, for example. They were quite slow, anyway, even if their speed was excellent in 1989. Also, they weren't able to control the videos and their error rate was much inferior to the Arvid system. To tell the truth, I don't know anything about these cards (I coulnd't get their drivers, I saw only the card) so I stop here.

Let's see what has happened so far.

ArVid 1020, the first commercial model, hit the market in early 1995. In Hungary it's been sold since then, but in other countries their sale started considerably later. E.g. in Finland it can't be bought even nowadays. So, one has to admit that they weren't sold widely, and only the elite did know that there is such a card. Of course, journalists were only too pleased to write on such a card (I was the first here to publish an article on it, anyway :)).

The card itself offers the following capabilities:

- storing data at some 205-210 kByte/sec,
- using home videos to avoid purchasing drives,
- DOS compatibility (it doesn't work under Linux/Win95, anyway. I haven't tested it under OS/2- it'd be great if the streamer software worked under some multitasking op. systems because Pentiums offer the computational power to correct all the smaller errors AND running other tasks at the same time).
- low price. Well, it was incredibly cheap a year ago when DATs and raw CDs were considerably more expensive, but I think ArVid is still a bargain now, in 1996.

  The above-mentioned 205-210 kByte/sec offers some 2.2 GByte storage capacity on an E-180 VHS casette. Quite impressive, isn't it?

  After unpacking the card one notices the low-quality soldering. Indeed, the components of the card were soldered BY HAND. It's not a joke! It also indicates an extremely important question: is the card RELIABLE? Won't it broke down before long?

  Well, I have had to get my card changed 3 times. It is very unreliable. The first card I had had problems with its remote controller (sometimes it stopped working so I had to controll my video manually), the second one broke down after a day (announcing the usual No interrupts-stuff) and the third worked only for some hours. The fourth has been working for half a year without any problems. So, do NOT buy the card without warranty.

  Regarding the card's incompatibility with motherboards, I have no problems with more up-to-date motherboards, in general. My criticism conccerns only the OLDER, 1020 model (the new, 1030 model was to hit the market in June, 1995, but it still hasn't been released yet, not to mention that Hungarian shops don't sell Arvid any more, I don't know why. Russians went bankrupt? I don't think so, making such cards must be a very profitable business as there is a high demand for cards that offer almost infinitive storage capabilities - and the components of the card can't cost more than 5-6 US$ as they're ALL made in Russia), the newer models (ArVid-1030) are said to work in any motherboard (but they haven't been released yet, and seeing that ArVid-1020s aren't sold in Hungary any longer makes me think there won't be 1030s at all). When I bought the card, I DID have problems with some chipsets (the streamer software doesn't start, it exits with a DMA is dead error message). These chipsets should be mentioned because the readme.txt file given with ArVid 1020 is quite inaccurate:

  PC-CHIPS (CHIP 5, CHIP 6);
  UMC/OPTI (OPTI82C392, UMC82C48x and UMC82C49x, where x denotes a number. It should be also mentioned that the card works on motherboards with OPTI82C495 and UMC8881F chipsets. OPTI82C392-based motherboards are incompatible.)
  ALI (M1419)
  CITYGATE (D110-014 and KS83C206Q)
  FOREX (FRX46C521A)

  It'd be the best if you asked the shop assistant to let you TRY the card in your machine first to check the incompatibility when buying it. In the new model, 1030, I don't know whether these DMA-controller problems have been eliminated or not. At least it is told to have much better compatibility with motherboards, but one can't be sure.

  The card doesn't make other cards (SCSI, network cards etc...) unable to start their task in case of same IRQ/DMA addresses so the system will boot up. It's the ArVid card that announces DMA/IRQ problems when starting. I had only one occasion with a GUS MAX Plug-in card. It may have been its plug-in capability that made my ArVid card unable to work, I don't know. The fact is that ArVid sometimes worked when the GUS card was in the machine and sometimes not.

  The card has a Norton Commander-like software. It is quite easy to use, athough, it (1020's) has some drawbacks:

- after logically copying some files (before issuing the F2 'write' command), it can't remove files if one changes one's mind, only removing all the selected files is possible, which is a real pain in the neck, as re-selecting all the wanted files is quite time-consuming if one restores only some files.

- there are occasions when it doesn't work together with EMS drivers, in my 486DLC40 motherboard, for example, whereas it works well with them in Pentium-machines. They cause freezing (everything works until the physical reading/writing: the card doesn't control the video, or if it starts controlling it, does so only for 1-2 minutes).

- when one needs some 100-200 MBytes of free space and decides to make some tricks and erase the first 10-20 minutes of a tape (e.g. because there is no space on his/her casettes anywhere) with a DIFFERENT casette name etc..., he won't have problems until he loses the NEW .tdr file that contains the directory of the tape. After losing the TDR, it's practically impossible to restore the SECOND part of the casette (that has NO header at the beginning of the tape), while restoring the directory area of the FIRST part is possible if one physically deletes the tape until the tapesize/4 area (in case of an E-195 tape and overwritten first 10 minutes, delete the entire tape from the end of the first set to the 40th minute. It'll make ArVid to turn back from the 35th minute to search for the directory at previous locations - it uses binary search), because if the Arvid finds some data there, it'll announce that there is a completely different file set and will refuse winding the tape back to find the end of the first tape set (ArVid writes the entire directory to the end of the last session to avoid the loss the contents of the entire tape in case of a losing the TDR of the tape, which is stored on the hard disk).

- teaching the program to remote control the video is very clumsy and awkward. Of course, the program knows a lot of videos and fortunately the videos I have at home were in its database, but there are also videos (some 2-3%, as I've found out) that aren't handled. As the card has its own infrared input LED at the back of the card, it is possible to teach the card any remote controller sequences. But one has to have a great deal of patience when teaching the card because the card's learn program quits after the smallest mistake (mistakes like putting the video's remote controller too far away from the back of the card etc) and one can begin the entire process from the beginning.

- in general, the card uses quite precise timing, regarding the estimation of the correct winding times (both fast forward and rewind). Not only has it the ffwd/rew times of each video in its database, but also calculates the size of the tape on the axles, so modifying the winding time. If the axle of the desired direction contain only small amount of tape, the estimated winding time is much longer (the case of rewinding when the tape is at its end or fast forward at the beginning)

- the poor English or the program, it can cause funny misunderstandings as well :-). And the DiskKiller boot virus on my ArVid disk, but I don't think it'd be so common- it may have been the mistake of the shop assistants (the box was opened when I bought the card). Also, the card stinks like hell in the first 10-20 hours, because of some shellac, used to cover some ICs on the card.

- it's a very annoying feauture that ArVid stops the recording when reaching the logical end of tape - if one formats a casette as a E-180 one, ArVid will stop recording when it reaches the 180th minute. Most of VHS casettes have some 3-4 minutes of valuable tape in addition to the declared tape length and sometimes it'd be very nice to use it. It's of no use to edit the .tdr files to rewrite 180 to 195, for example (I've tried it in such occasions). And, in addition, the time ArVid spends to write the last disk set (the one that stops) is also lost. In such occasions, one can consider RESET the PC to avoid deleting TEMP.TDR and renaming it to the original casette-directory-name. The last few megabytes will be lost, indeed, but you won't have to lose some 2-3 additional hours in case of rewriting the entire casette.
- It's also very annoying that in some cases (when the tape isn't rewound to the beginning, and we want to read files from just the first 1-2 minutes OR we're at the very beginning of the tape and we want to read from the middle of it e.g.) the reading/writing function wouldn't work, the video don't wind the tape. In this case one has to either Unmount the tape and rewind it to the very beginning of the tape (assuming he/she wants to read files from the beginning of it) or press the ffwd button to leave that area) or choose a closer program to load (after two Escapes), which WILL make the arvid20.exe to start reading them (assuming those prrograms are close enough to the actual tape position :)). In a word, when starting reading and we're either at the beginning of the tape (and we don't want to read from there) or we want to read from the first 1-2 minutes, it's a real pain in the ass to press Escapes and re-select all the files we want to copy.

  The cache and reading from/writing to slow resources: cache is a must when reading/writing. The 200k data rate does require a lot from the target storage system when reading. Even the fastest hard disks can't receive Gigabytes of files without stopping sometimes, so, cache is vital when writing. Also, writing e.g. Novell Network can cause a lot of trouble. I mean older cards - we've just set up newer 10 Mbit/s ones and they can be written directly, but in case of older cards the video has to rewind 8-10 times to complete the reading process, in general, because of the slow network.

  The reliability: I found Arvid very reliable, as regards the following:

- using different types of tapes, avoiding buying expensive ones.
- the compatibility between tapes written by different VCRs/ different Arvid cards/different motherboards.

  As regards the former one, I've found that relatively cheaper VHS tapes can be used without any risk. I mean e.g. Goldstar low-end tapes are very cheap and their colour SNR is quite low (this makes watching colour films very annoying from such tapes), but they are excellent when storing datas. Be warned! Tapes that are even cheaper have a lot of problems - constant drop-outs etc. Drop-outs that come occasionally don't cause much problems, but CONSTANT drop outs in 2-3 rows cause severely damaged signal and it makes it impossible to use these tapes. Also, occasional desynchronization ('jumping pictures') causes problems, too.

  Using other systems than VHS can be also considered. VHS in LP mode produced outstanding results - think of it, storing 6 GByte on an E-240 tape! It's quite useless to use SVHS casettes or any other advanced video systems with better resolution than 200 rows. Also, using V-2000/Beta/V8 systems can be also considered. Of course, they have their own drawbacks: the expensive casettes (e.g. V-2000 casettes are sold occasinally for 'crazies' who prefer such an old system to commercial ones :-) - still V2000 rulez, VHS sucks :).

  Regarding the compatibility between tapes written by different VCRs/ different Arvid cards/ different motherboards, ArVid is quite cool in this respect, too. I have some problems when reading casettes written by my older VHS video, but I've never had any bad files. Actually, the card has to rewind the tape 5-6 times to read the files. Anyway, this error is not common, I have such problems only with 2 old tapes.

  Summing up what has been said, ArVid is THE cheapest and still quite reliable and fast way to store high amounts of data if one is able to get rid of his/her prejudices (the origins of the card, the quality of soldering/bad English etc...)