Digital Video - October 2007 - (Page 57)

advanced professional applications— and as media costs continue to decline, the popularity of these camcorders will increase. But these costs are likely to remain too high to allow their general use in most pro camcorders at least for the next several years. With more than six decades of engineering behind it, tape technology has at least several years of development still ahead, enabling greater storage capacities as well as higherdefinition video capture. Fujifilm has already introduced data-storage tape cartridges that use its advanced “Nano-Cubic” metal-pigment technology, and Sony is marketing “Super-AIT” metal-film cartridges. Both of these products can support much higher digital densities than are currently in use in HDV applications. Imation and Hitachi Maxell, meanwhile, both have announced new “super-particle” tape technologies for digital recording, with the first commercial products expected in the coming months. metal-pigment coatings in the future—probably when it introduces its 1.6TB LTO-5 data storage cartridge in 2009 or 2010. All this is not to say that tapeless HDV systems won’t also find substantial markets in the near-term future. In the end, each media technology will offer certain advantages and disadvantages to the video professional. Tape’s greatest advantages lie in the small size but high capacities of the cassettes, their comparatively low cost and users’ familiarity with the technology. Tape media are also comparatively rugged, allowing them to be abused in handling, and to function satisfactorily over a wide range of temperatures. Tape’s greatest disadvantage lies in its lack of random access—a drawback that will become even greater as competing recording formats improve in capacity, cost, and versatility. Ultimately, this disadvantage will largely eliminate tape in all recording systems, including HDV—but that’s still quite a number of years away. HDV CONTINUES TO BENEFIT FROM IMPROVEMENTS IN TAPES DEVELOPED FOR OTHER DIGITAL RECORDING APPLICATIONS, LIKE DATA STORAGE. Further into the future are tapes made from “mixed ferrite” coatings, which can pack still more bits into tighter areal densities than are possible with metal-pigment materials. Since mixed-ferrite tapes could be prepared on the coating equipment already in place at tape manufacturing facilities, their costs should be similar to those of the most advanced cassettes in use today— while remaining much less expensive than removable hard-disk or flashmemory cartridges. Fujifilm has already announced that it will use mixed ferrites in place of www.dv.com While consumer camcorder applications are expected to become largely tapeless in the immediate future, the general consensus of opinion sees tape remaining as the primary recording medium for use in professional video image capture, and in most data-storage applications, well into the next decade. DV Larry Lueck has been at the forefront of storage media development for the last 60 years, working with companies including 3M and TDK. He heads Magnetic Media Information Services (www.mmis lueck.com), a consultancy based in Tokyo. dv october 2007 57 http://www.mydvmag.com http://www.mmislueck.com http://www.mmislueck.com http://www.dv.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Digital Video - October 2007

Cover Contents Letters DV Update R&D Fest Circuit Light Brigade Follow Focus Shootout Image Conscious Instant Expert Close-Ups Eastern Europe Exploit Call of the Wild Four Principles of Storage Storage Media Production Diary

Digital Video - October 2007

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