By Roger Maycock
Originally intended as a consumer format, DAT flopped with its target audience due to various concerns about copy issues, but was instead, embraced by the pro audio community. Providing more than 12 years of service, DAT has had an incredibly long run. With 24-bit / high sample rate digital audio rapidly becoming the norm, however, DAT now seems a bit long in the tooth. So what's next?
Constrained by the Red Book Standard
While emerging consumer formats such as SACD (Super Audio Compact Disc) and DVD-Audio are certain to make considerable headway with consumers over the next 3-5 years, today's CD isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The reality of the situation stems from the fact that CD's 16-bit, 44.1kHz digital audio format (known as Red Book audio) sounds infinitely better than that dreadful Compact Cassette, and continues to outperform MD (MiniDisc), MP3, RealAudio, Windows Media, and other contemporary formats that rely on data compression.
Given the state-of-the-art, audio professionals have wrestled with their desire to retain the sonic depth of character provided by 24-bit audio while being able to deliver a project that conforms to the Red Book standard. The result has been a variety of mixdown options - some of which address 24-bit digital audio, others that do not.
DAT Is Still With Us, But CD-R is King
Though multichannel surround sound formats have gained widespread acceptance in film, HDTV (High Definition Television), and DVD-Video, many music projects continue to be mixed to stereo.
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TASCAM's DA-45HR (click for larger image) |
During the past 18 months, musicians and manufacturers alike have flocked to CD-R. With the format's ability to deliver your creative efforts in a medium that is inexpensive and widely available, CD-R has replaced DAT as the preferred mixdown tool - but it should be noted that many CD-R recorders are strictly 16-bit machines that truncate data beyond the 16-bit wordlength. While this is not necessarily a problem for the legions of personal and project studios that continue to work in the 16-bit format, newer CD recorders, such as Yamaha's CDR1000 have begun to address the 24-bit challenge.
In 1993, Apogee Digital (www.apogeedigital.com) first introduced a technology known as UV-22. This word-length reduction process takes a high resolution digital signal and translates it into 16- or 20-bit data for use with DAT, CD-R, DVD-Video and other mastering applications. UV-22 is widely regarded as the foremost process by which recording professionals can maintain 24-bit quality as it is "reduced" to lower bitrates. Recently, Apogee upgraded their technology to UV-22HR (high resolution). The company's AD-8000 (8-channel) and PSX-100 (2-channel) converter products incorporate this technology.
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Yamaha's CDR1000 (click for larger image) |
With the success of
UV-22, Yamaha's (www.yamaha.com/proaudio)
CDR1000 became the first CD recorder to incorporate Apogee's technology
for conforming incoming high bitrate audio data to the Red Book standard.
Though more expensive than other competing CD-Rs, the CDR1000 does a wonderful
job of translating 24-bit data without inducing audible artifacts. Compared
to noise shaping or bit mapping, UV-22 technology delivers superior results.
According to John Schauer, Yamaha Pro Audio Product Manager, "The
Apogee UV22 encoding allows seamless conversion of even 24-bit material.
Mastering to CD has never been this easy. To further enhance performance,
the word clock input allows the CDR1000 to be professionally connected
into the digital studio."