Digital Audiotape
Digital audiotape (DAT) records audio signals digitally, as a coded series of zeroes and ones. DAT also uses helical-scan technology, that is, it records diagonally across the width of the tape. Introduced in Japan and Europe in the late 1980s, DAT became available to consumers in the United States in 1990. The DAT cartridge itself is much smaller than its analog counterpart, about half its size, and the tape itself is .4-.5 mm (about .15-.2 inches) thick. It looks like a smaller version of a VHS videocassette. DAT has only become a standard in the music recording industry. As a commercial format for music and computer data back-up, DAT has faced intense competition and prevailed only in the latter.
A Sony product, DAT is primarily thought of as a music recording and playback format, comparable to the compact disc (CD) in sound quality. Indeed, DAT tapes feature high fidelity, crystal clear sound and hold about two minutes of music per meter (1.1 yd) of tape. DAT has been used in the recording studio since in 1987, but did not hit the consumer market until 1990 because of legal action threatened by the music industry. DAT recorders can make perfect bit-for-bit copies of compact discs, leading to concerns that people would copy CDS, make pristine DAT copies of DAT copies, and sell them, undercutting profits. This issue was resolved by DAT manufacturers agreeing to insert a computer chip that prevents such copies of copies from being made.
Indeed, DAT is primarily used as a recording medium, whether it be musicians making recordings at home or in the studio--where DAT is used to make digital master tapes and demo tapes-- or fans taping concerts or their favorite compact discs. There are limited numbers of pre- recorded DATs available. DATs can be played back on a DAT deck, or a device similar to a walkman, called the DATman, manufactured by Sony and introduced in 1991. Despite DAT's superior sound quality, it has faced stiff competition on the consumer market from rival technologies like the digital compact cassette (DCC), introduced by Philips in 1992. DCCs look like analog audiocassettes, and unlike DAT, DCC players can play both analog and digital cassettes. The sound quality of DCC is necessarily as good as DAT. However, neither format has caught on in the mainstream consumer market of the late 1990s, and remain in the realm of musicians and high-end audiophiles.
The use of DAT as a data archive for computers is much more widespread because of its low cost, high capacity, and small size. An uncompressed 60-m (about 20 ft) DAT cartridge can hold up to 1.3 gigabytes of data. When compressed, the amount jumps to 2.5 gigabytes. To use DAT as a tape back-up system, a special drive is attached to the computer and files are copied onto it. Competitors have included 8-mm videotape, sometimes known under the brand name Exabyte; quarter-inch tape, also called QIC or "quick;" and, more recently, digital linear tape (DLT). But DAT speed and capacity, as well as the quietness and ease of use of DAT drives have made it the preferred tape back-up system as of 1996. A future threat to DAT's supremacy in this area is the advent recordable compact disc.
This is the complete article, containing 541 words
(approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page).
