AN EXPERIMENTAL DIGITAL VCR FOR CONSUMER USE

An experimental digital VCR (DVCR hereinafter) was developed. The DVCR has two new technologies for reduction of tape consumption. One is a bit rate reduction technology of a component video signal down to arou nd 25 Mbps and the other is a high density recording technology. The b it rate reduction technology is based on an 8x8/2x4x8 two dimensional DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform) and a VLC (Variable Length Coding) tha t completes over 5 macro blocks. Editing, trick plays and invisible er ror concealments also have been realized by this bit rate reduction wh ile keeping the playback picture quality very high. The high density r ecording technology is based on ME tape and an ATF (Automatic Track Fi nding) system. A track pitch of 10 mu m and a bit length on tape of 0. 25 mu m have been realized. The possibility of a higher linear recordi ng density has been confirmed through theoretical analysis, simulation s and experiments.