| DCC Tape Retailers Tape City (UK) Carries blank tapes along with DCC head cleaners and more. STRL (UK) Still has stocks of pre-recorded tapes. Service Centers Audio Centre (UK) Repairs Betamax and other rare Sony hardware, can supply spares that Sony cannot. Chemicals & demagnetisers Last Make preservants & cleaning solutions. Tape City (UK) DCC head cleaners and more. Video Tape Retailers Here are listed some specialist video tape retailers that carry outdated Sony video formats such as Betamax and U-Matic that are commonly used by PCM recorders and may be a bit difficult to find. Tape Tape (USA) Sells all types of video tape Please send any factual corrections, dead links, information and/or links that you feel that should be on this page to the page maintainer but please note that I do not have an Internet access at the moment so there may be some time before I can answer.
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There are still quite a few specialised, "outdated" or orphaned formats out there that are either capable of high quality recording and playback or have other redeeming qualities but are not popular or common enough to warrant a separate page. Noticeably there are quite a few semi-pro and pro digital formats that are no longer being directly supported or manufactured by their original manufacturers but use enough common technology to be viable for use today, not at the least the ones that use video tapes for storage, there are also current and /or recently discontinued professional recorders that record onto computer media such as PCMCIA (PC Card), Magneto Optical and SD. Completely apart from that there are a few old recording formats such as Elcaset that are quality wise fine for recording but present a problem in finding blank media, so we do not discuss them here. Another unusual but current recording format are Record Cutters.
Digital Compact Cassette
A format introduced by Philips in the early 90's and poised to be the successor to the Compact Cassette, it's media was mechanically mostly identical to the cassette except that it is one sided and has a sliding metal dust protector not dissimilar to the one on a 3.5" floppy. Electronically it is very different however, it's a digital recorder that archives recording and playback via a stationary 20 track lithographed thin film head (i.e.. it's S-DAT), the sound format was initially a 1:4 compressed 16bit format @ 44.1KHz and later a 18bit format at the same sampling rate although all DCC recorders allowed for recording and playback of 48kHz and 32kHz most recorders did not have A/D or sampling rate converters capable of using those so recording of 48 and 32 kHz was usually only possible via the digital inputs if the original material demanded it. The compression format used is PASC. Despite having the ability to play back analogue cassettes with remarkable sonic qualities thanks to it's litho head and having sound quality close to or slightly better than DAT (depending on your objectives and equipment), much better than the Mini Disc and having a larger dynamic range than both, it did not do well in the market outside of mainland Europe and in 1997 Philips abandoned the format in favour of another one of their other inventions : CD Recorders.
Fantasia
Introduced the FK-DCC1 in 1995 and that is one of the few hi-fi items to be issued using this brand, there was one or 2 unusual features to this machine but time is playing with my memory, if I recall it correctly this was one of the machines that had a low quality "extended play" mode, but this is not to be taken as gospel.
Optimus (Radio Shack)
Made the DCT-2000, these were rebadged first generation Philips units.
Philips
There is info on the portable 18 bit DCC 175 unit here that was a version of the DCC 170 that has a parallel port connector that can be plugged into PC compatible computers with the correct cable, some info on the older DCC 130 can be found here, but that is an older 16 bit portable variant. There is info to be found on the DCC 900 16 bit variant here, but that is a standard hi-fi separate machine and was the most expensive model of the first generation machines, the cheapest hi-fi separate machine from Philips that supported 18 bits was the DCC-730, it was actually a quite nice machine with the same specifications and had the same mechanism as the more upmarket DCC-951 but lacks some convenience features. There is also a DCC homepage with info on lots of models.
Technics
Had basically 2 home hi-fi machines on the market, the RS-DC8 and the 18 bit high end RS-DC10, the DC10 has some features missing from plainer recorders like proper title editing, features Dolby B and C rather than just plain B, optical and coax digital I/O and unusually enough fixed and variable voltage analogue outputs, the machine can like the upmarket Philips models digitise cassettes and send the data out via the digital outputs, much better than using a crummy soundcard. Additionally there was a portable recorder available under the Panasonic brand in the form of the RQ-DP7.
Note that the playback sound quality of analogue cassettes on a DCC recorder is much better than what the quoted audio specs for the analogue sections indicate (30Hz to 16kHz with chrome cassettes, less with ferric, this is similar to a quoted spec for a mid to late 70's hi-fi recorder), but some users of portable recorders reported problems with the sound quality of analogue playback. The tape formulations supplied by manufactures was actually from video tape stock rather than Compact Cassette stock, i.e. mostly chromium tapes but cobalt doped ferric formulations were also available at the least in the early day's of DCC, for archival purposes the ferric formulations have a longer lifetimes despite the lower price, this use of video tape stock explains why metal tape playback is not officially supported. A few chromium audio cassette formulations are very similar to video tape formulations so that it's theoretically possible to force some audio cassettes to work in a DCC recorder by modifying the enclosure and tape pad (if you need to seriously overbias a chrome tape to make it sound right on an analogue recorder, chances are that it's video stock), but no audio cassette ferric formulations are similar to the video type ferric formulations that DCC expects. The 20 track head is needed despite the recorder using only 9 tracks because the heads combine recording and playback functions unlike the heads on a traditional recorder which can only do so by using siamese heads this gave the company space to implement a azimuth guide that actually works, the missing 2 tracks are used for playback of analogue tapes. The heads were revolutionary when introduced BTW, they used Magneto-Resistive technology which even the computer industry did not start to use until years later, it is the use of this technology which allowed the use of S-DAT at such a slow Tape Speeds, the heads were actually so good that Philips could have used only 1:1,8 compression of a 16 bit signal, much better than they thought they could get away with initially. Auto-reverse is stipulated in the DCC standard so all decks feature it. The archives of the DCC-L mailing list are available online. As for recording media, Philips is required by European law to supply blanks until 2012.
Video cassette based digital recording formats
When the recording world started to turn to the digital recording formats en masse in the late 70's and early 80's the Japanese conglomerates that had managed corner a large part of the consumer audio market saw an opportunity to get into the semi-pro and professional recording markets that were at that time the playground of US based companies like 3M (Wollensak), Ampex and MCI and to lessen the time to market for those products they choose to use the consumer video cassette formats as the media carrier as they had already spent a considerable amount of time and money developing them to a point that they were reliable. Panasonic showed such a consumer recorder by 1980 that utilised a VHS mechanism. But it was in fact Sony that cornered this market, first by releasing a processor box that turned a professional U-MAX video recorder into a 16bit digital recorder and later they released the famous F1 box that allowed a home video recorder of either a VHS or Betamax format to become a 16 bit recorder. While this unit became wildly popular in the semi-pro and archival markets, the consumer market showed no interest and that lead Sony to develop the DAT.
ADAT
A neat idea from Alesis, an 8 track 16bit digital audio recorder that uses a common Super-VHS cassette as a storage medium. The first version vas released around 1990 and was wildly popular despite the fact that Alesis choose to use a consumer VHS mechanism which lead to dropouts and all too frequent breakdowns (the average ADAT machine seeing much more use than the average consumer video recorder). Updates to the format have seen more reliable machines and higher bitrates along with some support for the format from other company's like Fostex who had the RD-8, more expensive that the Alesis offering but also better liked. Studer 20 bit variant of the ADAT format. Owners of ADAT's shuld note that there is an ADAT mailing list active on Yahoo.
Akai Electric Co.
Had the A-DAM DR-1200 in the early 90's, it was an 12 track 16 bit digital recorder that used Video-8 cassettes for storage, this machine was not compatible with DA88, but confusingly enough Akai later sold a rebadged DA88 (see the DTRS section below).
dbx corp.
Made a digital > video processor that used the Bitstream format rather than PCM, that format has resurfaced with SACD, it was called model 700 and an old review of it is to be found here, sadly I cannot remember how many FS it was, does anyone out there have the technical specification for this or any other dbx converter unit ?.
DTRS
Tascam introduced the 8 track DA88 machine to counter the Alesis ADAT (see above), uses a Hi-8 video mechanism and cassettes for media storage and was more flexible, reliable and better sounding than the original ADAT but that format was too well entrenched in the music recording market for the DA88 to make a dent, it did however find a role in the video post production market both due to the superior reliability and due to better interfacing capabilities of the recorder. Tascam and Sony have later made other recorders that use this format and Tascam still has makes the DA88 due to popular demand, a 10 year old digital recorder that is still viable in the market is something of a rarity these days. The Akai Electric Co. DD-8 is a rebadged DA88. For more information on this format see this page. One product of interest to owners of DTRS machines is the PRSM 2024 a digital board that allows a DA88 compatible machine to work in 20 and 24 bit formats with reduced track count.
Technics PCM Recorders
Introduced the SH-P1 in 1980, it was a digital PCM recorder that used a VHS video transport for storage, a similar model called SV-P100 was introduced in 1981, and is a more common sight, but sales were disappointing and the company discontinued the line in the early 80's, note that unlike most other such video tape based recorders the Technics boxes contained their own recorders and were not just processors to be hooked up to video recorders.
PCMCIA (PC Card) based recorders
Nagra-Kudelski
Makes 2 professional recorders that utilise PCMCIA media, one is a ruggedised portable model called the Ares P and a tabletop version with better editing facilities called the Ares CPP.
Magneto Optical Recording Formats
Akai Electric Co.
Makes 3 types of 8 track MO recorders, unlike the Otari units here below that are geared towards the broadcast market, the Akai range is aimed towards the video post production market even to a degree were their standalone models can become a plug in replacement for TEAC DA-88's with a superset of the features and interfaces that it offers. They offer 2 standalone models, the DD-8 and the DD-8 Plus, both of them are rack mounted units with fairly simple editing options, the Plus version offers 24 bits recording at 96KHz. More interestingly the company has a modular system called the 1500 range, it consists of an tabletop editing unit named DL-1500 that can in turn control multiplies of the rack mounted DD-1500m recording units and DD-1500x11 MO storage units
In the early 90's the company had a line of 4 track MO recorders also intended for AV post production applications, they were 16 bit, with very good editing capabilities for the time and were called DD-1000 and you could get a slave unit called DD-1000s if you needed more tracks. An improved version called DD-1000i was introduced in 1994.
Genex
Makes a 8 track MO recorder that is intended for classical music recording, has editing capabilities and can store DSD format recordings if an external bitstream converter is used.
Makes a line of MO recorders and editors mostly intended for the broadcasting and duplicating market but they have seen some use with the audio book industry. They all use a standard 3.5" standard MO disks and the DX line stores the data as IBM OS/2 Wav files so you can use them with just about any computer editor that has been equipped with a MO drive, the DX units also support the BWF format, the PD units however format the disk in a proprietary way as the DOS format is to slow to handle multitrack or sampling rates above 44.1kHz. The DX-5050 is the lowest cost version of the Otari MO recorders, it has only simple editing functions but allows you to connect an external MO drive to extend the recording time capability of the unit. The DX-5 is a mono unit intended for use with voice recording such as is the recording of audio books and uses a reduced 22 KHz sampling rate to give you up to 4 hours of recording time. SCSI connector allows the unit to use external storage or to be used as a slave to a computer.
The PD-20 rack unit supports recording up-to 48 KHz and has exhaustive editing capabilities built in, simpler editing can be done from the front panel, but more advanced functions become available once you hook an optional remote to the unit and connect a VGA compatible monitor to the built in VGA connector. The unit has Video, digital and word clock sync options as standard and as SCSI interface. The PD-20B is a console version of the PD-20 that has exhaustive editing capabilities, built in VDU and AES/EBU interfacing in addition to the what the rack unit has. The PD-80 is an 8 track version of the PD-20 that sports DSP processing and frame sync in addition to the usual.
Sony
In the early 90's they introduced the PCM-9000 a Magneto Optical stereo mastering recorder that had the unique (at the time) capability of being able to record 20 bit signals. Editing facilities, good I/O section and great sound meant that it sold a bit to the rich pop stars and to the classical recording industry, and may indeed be the inspiration for the Genex here above, but the scary price of the unit (more than most 24 track recorders at the time) meant that it never sold in any numbers to speak of.
S-DAT Recorders
S-DAT differs from R-DAT and common video recorders only in that the head does not rotate thus giving us simpler and more robust head assemblies, less dropouts, cleaning and adjustment are easier but recording times are usually shorter pr. meter. Other S-DAT recorders discussed on those pages are the Mitshubishi Pro-Digi, Nagra-Kudelski and Sony DASH open reel formats that you will find on the Reel to Reel page and the Philips DCC that you can find discussed here above.
Yamaha Corp.
Yamaha's Professional Recording division took the decision to use this storage technology for their ultra expensive DMR-8 and DRU-8 8 track recorders in the early 90's, granted these recorders were aimed squarely at mastering studio's but nevertheless...The DMR-8 was a standalone unit wit loads of innovative editing and automation features that made it a great mastering recorder, the DRU-8 was intended to link with and be controlled by the DMC-1000 digital mixing desk, the cassettes used by Yamaha were called MU20P and are actually 8mm video cassettes with a extra thin tape to allow for a reasonable playing time and can be had from your local Yamaha dealer via special order.
Sony Scoopman
Oddball format released by Sony in 1991 with the NT-1 recorder, it's a 12 bit linear digital recorder that uses a tape cassette the size of a postage stamp as a storage medium and as the name implies intended more for use in voice recording rather than music, nevertheless reasonable results can be archived with the unit and it's incredibly small size meant that some live tapers stared to use it for "difficult gigs". Despite being an awesome technical achievement and having a cool factor out of this world, the format never really took off in it's intended market segment, also there appear to have been some technical problems as well since at the launch of the Scoopman the company claimed that a cassette could have 4 hours of recording time or even more, however a look at their media cataloge shows that they are not making any cassettes longer than 120 minutes. Sony Asia is listing the updated NT-2 recorder as a current product but it's not officially distributed outside of that part of the world any longer and if you want to get hold of a one in the west you will have to go to a specialist dealer such as Spymaster, but blanks can be ordered through any friendly Sony dealer. If you are using a Scoopman note that Sony has stopped making cleaning cassettes for the format, so if you find one for sale stock up.
Media Manufacturers
Well you can buy a decent VHS tape almost anywhere, but tapes for Digital Compact Cassette recorders are only made by Fuji-Magnetics and Emtec. Buy a ferric tape for long term storage (archival use) and a chrome tape for heavy short term use. Betamax tapes can be a bit of a problem in Europe but they can be had fairly easily in the US and Asia.
Emtec
Makes Digital Compact Cassette tapes even though they are not listed in their catalogue, these are also sold branded as Philips, they have committed themselves to supply DCC tapes for the foreseeable future. The company also makes high quality VHS format tapes that are available both using a chromium band (better quality) or using a ferric band (longer shelf life).
Fuji-Magnetics
In addition to the usual video cassettes, the company makes both PD and MO variants of magneto optical disks.
Primedisc
Makes a range of MO disks.
Sony
Sony Media has a line of Metal Evaporated tapes especially intended for use with DTRS, along with a ADAT tape called DASV.
Quantegy
Apart from manufacturing the more usual video cassettes etc, the comapny has a line of cassettes especially intended for audio recording. the DA-8 is a metal formulated 8mm cassette intended for DTRS applications, the DAU tape is intended for U-Matic PCM and the ADAT is a VHS tape