Re: Re: Recording Equipment


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Posted by Chuck on October 30, 1999 at 13:57:41:

In Reply to: Re: Recording Equipment posted by Doug on October 30, 1999 at 13:41:07:

DAT stands for Digital Audio Tape. The media looks a bit like ordinary cassette tape, but the cassettes are a bit smaller and the tape itself is 4mm wide. Digitized data is recorded by means of a helical scan mechanism much like a VCR.

DAT's been around for some years, but the US recording industry lobbied Congress early to ban imports of DAT devices until an anti-CD-copying scheme had been incorprated into the units. Seems pretty silly now that CD's can be copied on any PC with a CD-R drive, but the anti-copying hardware persists. Most US-licensed DAT drives will allow you to make only first-generation copies of CDs. Copies of copies are locked out by the unit.

Because of the legislative roadblocks erected early on, DAT drives were slow to catch on here but are considerably more popular in many other countries.




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