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From: thoth@uiuc.edu (Ben Cox)
Newsgroups: comp.society.futures
Subject: Re: The Future of DAT?
Message-ID: <1991Jun24.033143.29193@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 24 Jun 91 03:31:43 GMT
References: <9106222115.AA10855@world.std.com>
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Reply-To: thoth@uiuc.edu (Ben Cox)
Organization: Ancient Illuminated Bavarian Seers
Lines: 45

bzs@WORLD.STD.COM (Barry Shein) writes:

>                                                         The MD is
>"immune" to the tracking problems portable CD's have (if jostled CD's
>often go silent as they find their place again.) They keep a buffer in
>RAM which holds enough sound to keep playing while repositioning the
>head.

This is not something that is unique to the MD format; CD players
could do this as well and remain in compliance with CD standards --
this is a feature of the player, not of the media.  Now, it may be
that the MD standard states that the players must have this feature,
but there is nothing saying CD's can't.

>Equally interesting were the comments in the article about the current
>state of DAT. Out of 190 million audio players (of all types) sold
>worldwide last year, only 150,000 of them were DATs. There are about
>30 albums available on DAT media. Basically, the Economist concluded,
>DAT is dead.

DAT may be dead as a consumer media, but there are plenty of DAT
machines in professional recording studios worldwide (I work with 5 of
them on a daily basis), and they are not going to be abandoned too
easily -- look at how many PCM Beta's are still in use (unfortunately
:->).

As a consumer medium, perhaps one that we will see overtake DAT is the
new Philips DCC format, although the MD may beat DCC to the punch,
because of its random access (while DCC is still a tape, and thus
serial access).

Of course, Studer recently introduced their D470(?) write-once CD
recorder, which writes CDs playable on any CD player...  Prices are
astronomical, but with a few other manufacturers having announced
similar products, they may be dropping rapidly.  These will probably
find their main use in the professional recording studio, though, as
DAT has.

It is important to remember that although products may drop out of
general consumer use, they may still be vital for professional
applications (like Beta VCR's -> PCM digital audio).

--
Ben Cox
thoth@uiuc.edu