ABSTRACT
There was much scepticism when digital audio recorders were first introduced. The sound was harsh . . . the sound was cold . . . editing was difficult . . . the equipment was expensive – a whole list of complaints from those with a heavy investment in analogue recorders, and others. Where are the sceptics now? They are still there but are very few in number and most have come to agree that digital audio offers so many advantages for the storage and manipulation of sound that its few disadvantages can be almost completely disregarded. Even if you prefer the sound of analogue tape, it is almost certain that the last resting place of your signal will be on a digital medium. Strangely enough, there never was any similar complaint about the introduction of digital video recorders. Perhaps the concept was easier to accept after the introduction of digital audio, or perhaps the shortcomings of analogue video recorders are such that the professional user has longed for a superior technology to take over. Digital video processing has been with us for some time in the timebase correctors necessary for successful C-Format analogue recording, but actually storing digital video information on tape proved rather more difficult. Seemingly insurmountable problems, to engineers, are the source of a great deal of job satisfaction, and the problems posed in achieving a data rate of more than 200 Megabits per second must have been particularly mouth-watering (compared with the upper frequency limit of analogue video, a mere 5.5 MHz, which took many years of research to achieve reliably). But the advantages of digital video in the form of rock-steady pictures and the complete absence of generation loss in editing and distribution are considerable and in the twelve years since its introduction it is now close to ousting analogue machinery totally for both professional and amateur user.
