Magnetic tape | recording medium (2024)

Magnetic tape devices. Magnetic tape provides a compact, economical means of preserving and reproducing varied forms of information. Recordings on tape can be played back immediately and are easily erased, permitting the tape to be reused many times without a loss in quality of recording.…

…or lightweight metal that holds magnetic tape for audio or video recording and replay. A tape cassette is designed so that it can be inserted in a recorder and used immediately; it eliminates the need to thread a portion of the tape manually before starting the recorder. In a cassette…

Magnetic tape, similar to the tape used in tape recorders, has also been used for auxiliary storage, primarily for archiving data. Tape is cheap, but access time is far slower than that of a magnetic disk because it is sequential-access memory—i.e., data must…

…were stored on reels of magnetic tape and these reels could be processed only in a sequential manner. Sequential files are generally stored in some sorted order (e.g., alphabetic) for printing of reports (e.g., a telephone directory) and for efficient processing of batches of transactions. Banking transactions (deposits and withdrawals),…

Magnetic audio tape is used to capture speech and music, and magnetic videotape provides a low-cost medium for recording analog voice and video signals directly and simultaneously. Magnetic technology has other uses in the direct recording of analog information, including alphanumerics. Magnetic characters, bar codes,…

…began to be replaced by magnetic tape, which is even more rapidly made, at a rate of about 1,000 characters per second, or 3,600,000 per hour. Although magnetic tape is useless for mechanical composers casting pieces of type or lines in lead, such speed is practical for other kinds of…

…layer of tiny particles of magnetic powder, usually ferric oxide (Fe₂O₃) and to a lesser extent chromium dioxide (CrO₂). The recording head of the tape deck consists of a tiny C-shaped magnet with its gap adjacent to the moving tape. The incoming sound wave, having been converted by a microphone…

…however, the much-improved medium of magnetic tape offered both superior sound quality and the crucial advantage of editability. From the simple tape splice to the more recent cutting and pasting of digital audio, the ability to edit gave rise to a “record consciousness,” an approach that sought to move beyond…

The recording of video signals on magnetic tape was a major technological accomplishment, first implemented during the 1950s in professional machines for use in television studios and later (by the 1970s) in videocassette recorders (VCRs) for use in homes. The home VCR was…

…video information onto and from magnetic tape. It is commonly used for recording television productions that are intended for rebroadcasting to mass audiences. There are two types of video tape units: the transverse, or quad, and the helical.