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From: elg@usl (Eric Lee Green)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: FM audio recording?
Message-ID: <180@usl>
Date: Fri, 25-Sep-87 18:13:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: usl.180
Posted: Fri Sep 25 18:13:51 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Sep-87 10:37:52 EDT
References: <430@root44.co.uk>
Organization: CACS, Univ of SW La, Lafayette, LA
Lines: 38
Keywords: FM tape
Summary: Lack of bandwidth (huh?)

in article <430@root44.co.uk>, jgh@root.co.uk (Jeremy G Harris) says:
> In article <3746d52b.b8ab@apollo.uucp> rees@apollo.uucp (Jim Rees) writes:
>>How come FM was never widely used for audio recording?
> 
> You lose out so much on the bandwidth that the tape costs would be
> exorbitant. FM trades performance across a noisy channel for bandwidth
> of the encoded signal. Audio-quality FM is wideband. 

Now, I'm no electronics genius, but even I know that television
signals have a huge bandwidth requirement... if we can store
television signals, why not FM audio signals, which have a much
narrower bandwidth requirement?

Someone else mentioned that the problem was that digital, a superior
technology, came along at the same time as FM audio became technically
feasible. I must agree somewhat, when it comes to consumer equipment,
as VCRs have only recently come down to a decent price, and tapes for
VCRs are still quite expensive compared to audio tape. Still, in
studio settings, I fail to see why they didn't move to FM equipment
long ago... after all, television studios have long used videotape,
long before consumers could afford them... if the studios had gone to
that superior technology, we wouldn't have to be putting up with the
tape hiss that is so evident when you listen to vintage recordings of
the '60s and '70s off of CD.

But then again, the music industry, in the U.S. at least, is totally
uninterested in progress and innovation... witness their struggle to
squash digital audio tape in the cradle. It's remarkable that they
even put out stuff on CDs. One reason they may have even consented to
put out stuff in CD format, was because they hoped to lure customers
who'd otherwise go to home-taping of albums... after hearing the CD of
an albums, you just aren't satisfied with just having a taped copy of
it.

--
Eric Green  elg@usl.CSNET       from BEYOND nowhere:
{ihnp4,cbosgd}!killer!elg,      P.O. Box 92191, Lafayette, LA 70509
{akgua,killer}!usl!elg        "there's someone in my head, but it's not me..."