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The video cassette recorder
The VCR
Mechanically the VCR (video cassette recorder) in the Digi Beta camera is similar to most modern VCRs in that it uses helical scan technology. The name ‘helical scan’ is derived from the path the tape takes around the rotating drum on which are mounted the recording heads.
The Digi Beta camera needs to use this sophisticated method of tape transport in order to be able to lay down sufficient information in a suitably short space of time. As we have seen in the description of the television system, and its modern digital method of turning each value into a code of zeros and ones, all the tape has to hold are the equivalent of ons and offs but (and it is a very big but) the quantity of zeros and ones will ...
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