A COMPARISON OF ROTARY-HEAD AND STATIONARY-HEAD VIDEO TAPE-RECORDERS

In magnetic tape recording, two approaches have emerged in which essen tially the same medium is tracked in two different ways: rotary- and s tationary-head recorders. Both approaches are commonly employed in dig ital audio anal data recording, but since the introduction of the firs t analog video recorders in the early 50s, rotary-head recorders (eith er helical or transverse scan) have held undivided sway in the video d omain. The advent of various new enabling techniques such as (MPEG) so urce coding and multi-track heads may affect the hegemony of the rotar y-head machine. The article will appraise both types of transport in a n attempt to establish which approach might be considered for a given application.