Concept
Magnetic tape
Related concepts (18)
Analog recording
Analog recording is a category of techniques used for the recording of analog signals. This enables later playback of the recorded analog audio. Analog audio recording began with mechanical systems such as the phonautograph and phonograph. Later, electronic techniques such as wire and tape recording were developed. Analog recording methods store analog signals directly in or on the media. The signal may be stored as a physical texture on a phonograph record, or a fluctuation in the field strength of a magnetic recording.
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording. Sound recording is the transcription of invisible vibrations in air onto a storage medium such as a phonograph disc. The process is reversed in sound reproduction, and the variations stored on the medium are transformed back into sound waves.
Cassette tape
The Compact Cassette, also commonly called a cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog magnetic tape recording format for audio recording and playback. Invented by Lou Ottens and his team at the Dutch company Philips in 1963, Compact Cassettes come in two forms, either containing content as a prerecorded cassette (Musicassette), or as a fully recordable "blank" cassette. Both forms have two sides and are reversible by the user.
Ampex
Ampex Data Systems Corporation 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. 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 digital data storage systems capable of functioning in harsh environments.
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording
Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the supply reel (or feed reel) containing the tape is placed on a spindle or hub. The end of the tape is manually pulled from the reel, threaded through mechanical guides and over a tape head assembly, and attached by friction to the hub of the second, initially empty takeup reel. Reel-to-reel systems use tape that is wide, which normally moves at .
VHS
VHS (short term for Video Home System) is a standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes invented in 1976 by the Victor Company of Japan and was the competitor to the ill-fated Sony Betamax system. Magnetic tape video recording was adopted by the television industry in the 1950s in the form of the first commercialized video tape recorders (VTRs), but the devices were expensive and used only in professional environments.
Betamax
Betamax (also known as Beta, as in its logo) is a consumer-level analog recording and cassette format of magnetic tape for video, commonly known as a video cassette recorder. It was developed by Sony and was released in Japan on May 10, 1975, followed by the US in November of the same year. Betamax is widely considered to be obsolete, having lost the videotape format war which saw its closest rival, VHS, dominate most markets. Though Betamax tapes had higher quality image, the lower-cost VHS tape ultimately became the standard.
Wire recording
Wire recording, also known as magnetic wire recording, was the first magnetic recording technology, an analog type of audio storage. It recorded sound signals on a thin steel wire using varying levels of magnetization. The first crude magnetic recorder was invented in 1898 by Valdemar Poulsen. The first magnetic recorder to be made commercially available anywhere was the Telegraphone, manufactured by the American Telegraphone Company, Springfield, Massachusetts in 1903.
Tape head
A tape head is a type of transducer used in tape recorders to convert electrical signals to magnetic fluctuations and vice versa. They can also be used to read credit/debit/gift cards because the strip of magnetic tape on the back of a credit card stores data the same way that other magnetic tapes do. Cassettes, reel-to-reel tapes, 8-tracks, VHS tapes, and even floppy disks and early hard drive disks all use the same principle of physics to store and read back information. The medium is magnetized in a pattern.
Multitrack recording
Multitrack recording (MTR), also known as multitracking, is a method of sound recording developed in 1955 that allows for the separate recording of multiple sound sources or of sound sources recorded at different times to create a cohesive whole. Multitracking became possible in the mid-1950s when the idea of simultaneously recording different audio channels to separate discrete "tracks" on the same reel-to-reel tape was developed.