The Compact Cassette, Compact Audio Cassette (CAC) or Musicassette (MC), also commonly called the cassette tape or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. It was developed by Philips in Hasselt, Belgium, and released in 1962. Compact cassettes come in two forms, either already containing content as a prerecorded cassette (Musicassette), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms are reversible by the user.
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, or tape machine is a sound recording and reproduction device that records and plays back sounds usually using magnetic tape for storage. In its present-day form, it records a fluctuating signal by moving the tape across a tape head that polarizes the magnetic domains in the tape in proportion to the audio signal. Tape-recording devices include the reel-to-reel tape deck and the cassette deck, which uses a cassette for storage.
A boombox is a transistorized portable music player featuring one or two cassette tape recorder/players and AM/FM radio, generally with a carrying handle. Beginning in the mid 1980s, a CD player was often included. Sound is delivered through an amplifier and two or more integrated loudspeakers. A boombox is a device typically capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music. Many models are also capable of recording onto cassette tapes from radio and other sources. In the 1990s, some boomboxes were available with minidisc recorders and players. Designed for portability, boomboxes can be powered by batteries as well as by line current. The boombox was introduced to the American market during the late 1970s. The desire for louder and heavier bass led to bigger and heavier boxes; by the 1980s, some boomboxes had reached the size of a suitcase. Some larger boomboxes even contained vertically mounted record turntables. Most boomboxes were battery-operated, leading to extremely heavy, bulky boxes.
A hard disk recorder (HDR) is a system that uses a high-capacity hard disk to record digital audio or digital video. Hard disk recording systems represent an alternative to reel-to-reel audio tape recording and video tape recorders, and provide editing capabilities unavailable to tape recorders. Audio HDR systems, which can be standalone or computer-based, typically include provisions for digital mixing and processing of the audio signal.
Nagra is a brand of portable audio recorders produced from 1951 in Switzerland. Since 1997 a range of high-end equipment aimed at the audiophile community was introduced as a diversification into a hitherto unknown market.
Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence. Today, Ampex operates as Ampex Data Systems Corporation, a subsidiary of Delta Information Systems, and consists of two business units. The Silicon Valley unit, known internally as Ampex Data Systems (ADS), manufactures ruggedized, high-capacity, high-performance digital data storage systems capable of functioning in harsh environments on land, in the air, at sea, and in space. The Colorado Springs, Colorado unit, referred to as Ampex Intelligent Systems (AIS), serves as a laboratory and hub for the company’s line of industrial control system cyber security products and services and its artificial intelligence/machine learning technology which is available across all of the company’s products.
Helical scan is a method of recording high-frequency signals on magnetic tape. It is used in open-reel video tape recorders, video cassette recorders, digital audio tape recorders, and some computer tape drives.
A variable speed pitch control is a control on an audio device such as a turntable, tape recorder, or CD player that allows the operator to deviate from a standard speed. The latter term "vari-speed" is more commonly used for tape decks, particularly in the UK. Analog pitch controls vary the voltage being used by the playback device; digital controls use digital signal processing to change the playback speed or pitch. A typical DJ deck allows the pitch to be increased or reduced by up to 8%, which is achieved by increasing or reducing the speed at which the platter rotates.
A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to disk recording, portable media players and TV gateways with recording capability, and digital camcorders. Personal computers are often connected to video capture devices and used as DVRs; in such cases the application software used to record video is an integral part of the DVR. Many DVRs are classified as consumer electronic devices; such devices may alternatively be referred to as personal video recorders (PVRs), particularly in Canada.
D-VHS is a digital video recording format developed by JVC, in collaboration with Hitachi, Matsushita, and Philips. The "D" in D-VHS originally stood for "Data", but JVC renamed the format as "Digital VHS". Released in 1998, It uses the same physical cassette format and recording mechanism as S-VHS, and is capable of recording and displaying both standard-definition and high-definition content. The content data format is in MPEG transport stream, the same data format used for most digital television applications. The format was introduced in 1998.
The PMD 85 was an 8-bit personal computer produced from 1985 by the companies Tesla Piešťany and Tesla Bratislava in the former Czechoslovakia.
A PCM adaptor is a device that encodes digital audio as video for recording on a videocassette recorder. The adapter also has the ability to decode a video signal back to digital audio for playback. This digital audio system was used for mastering early compact discs.
Denon is a Japanese electronics company that was involved in the early stages of development of digital audio technology, while specializing in the manufacture of high-fidelity professional and consumer audio equipment. For many decades, Denon was a brand name of Nippon-Columbia, including the Nippon Columbia record label. The Denon brand came from a merger of Denki Onkyo and others in 1939. In 2001, Denon was spun off as a separate company with 98% held by Ripplewood Holdings and 2% by Hitachi. In 2002, Denon merged with Marantz to form D&M Holdings. On March 1, 2017, Sound United LLC completed the acquisition of D+M Holdings.
Soundstream Inc. was the first audiophile digital audio recording company, providing commercial services for recording and computer-based editing.
The H4 Handy Recorder is a handheld digital audio recorder from Zoom, featuring built-in condenser microphones in an X-Y stereo pattern, priced from around US$280 depending upon memory capacity as of 2011.
Total Recorder is digital audio editor software from High Criteria, Inc. which is able to record any sound coming through a computer soundcard. In addition to recording through a soundcard, Total Recorder is able to record digital sound directly through its virtual sound driver. This driver provides an advantage of recording audio reproduced by an external program directly in digital format, i.e. without digital-analog-digital conversions leading to loss of quality, and even in those cases when a computer soundcard has no loop-back line. Total Recorder is a shareware program. Evaluation version of Total Recorder is a fully functional version of the program, with the exception that an audible noise will be inserted about every 60 seconds.
Uncompressed video is digital video that either has never been compressed or was generated by decompressing previously compressed digital video. It is commonly used by video cameras, video monitors, video recording devices, and in video processors that perform functions such as image resizing, image rotation, deinterlacing, and text and graphics overlay. It is conveyed over various types of baseband digital video interfaces, such as HDMI, DVI, DisplayPort and SDI. Standards also exist for carriage of uncompressed video over computer networks.
From 1963 to 1970, Ampex manufactured several models of VTR 2-inch helical VTRs, capable of recording and playing back analog black and white video. Recording employed non-segmented helical scanning, with one wrap of the tape around the video head drum being a little more than 180 degrees, using two video heads. One video drum rotation time was two fields of video. The units had two audio tracks recorded on the top edge of the tape, with a control track recorded on the tape's bottom edge. The 2-inch-wide video tape used was one mil thick. The VTRs were mostly used by industrial companies, educational institutions, and a few for in-flight entertainment.
The Zoom H2n is a portable digital sound recording device manufactured by Zoom. It is the successor of the Zoom H2 recorder. The Zoom H2n has 4 mic capsules built inside it. Musical applications for the H2N include the ability to use the device as a stereo or multi-track recorder; the device also includes built-in editor for some minor editing works with in the device.