Digital Compact Cassette
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A Digital Compact Cassette sent by Q-magazine to its readers.
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| Media type | Magnetic tape |
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| Encoding | Precision Adaptive Sub-band Coding (MPEG-1 Audio Layer I) |
| Capacity | 105 minutes |
| Write mechanism | multi-track stationary head |
| Developed by | Philips & Panasonic |
| Usage | audio |
| Extended from | Compact Cassette |
The Digital Compact Cassette (DCC) is a magnetic tape sound recording format introduced by Philips and Matsushita in late 1992 and marketed as the successor to the standard analog Compact Cassette. It was also a direct competitor to Sony's MiniDisc (MD) but neither format toppled the then ubiquitous analog cassette despite their technical superiority. Another competing format, the Digital Audio Tape (DAT) had by 1992 also failed to sell in large quantities (although it was established in recording studios)—DCC was envisaged as a cheaper alternative to DAT. DCC shared a similar form factor to analog cassettes, and DCC recorders could play back either type of cassette. This backward compatibility allowed users to adopt digital recording without rendering their existing tape collections obsolete.
DCC signalled the parting of ways of Philips and Sony, who had worked together successfully on the Compact Disc, CD-ROM and CD-i before. Based on the success of Digital Audio Tape in professional environments, both companies saw a market for a new consumer-oriented digital audio recording system that would be less expensive and perhaps less fragile. Sony decided to create the entirely new MiniDisc format (based on their experience with magneto-optical recording and Compact Disc) while Philips decided on a tape format that was compatible with their earlier analog Compact Cassette format.
DCC, initially referred to as S-DAT (Stationary head Digital Audio Tape, as opposed to R-DAT -- Rotary head Digital Audio Tape), was developed in cooperation with Matsushita, and the first DCC recorders were introduced at the CES in Chicago in May, 1992 and the consumer electronics show in Amsterdam in September 1992. At that time, not only Philips and Technics (brand of Matsushita) announced DCC-recorders but also other brands such as Grundig and Marantz (both related to Philips at the time).
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