When did the DAT tape format die?

[Tone]

Interesting for me Lee should bring this up now. I've just spent the last few days moving my entire room to a new venue (after 15 happy years in the old one) and I couldn't believe how many DATs were stored in boxes in my old office. I was already thinking perhaps it was time to transfer them but now I'm going to have to invest the time and get it done before my Tascam DAT player dies.

[froyo]

Hello. I still get a request for a DAT once in a blue moon as a delivery method. We have dug into the matter and found out the only reason for this is that one person on the client's side is justifying their job by using a convoluted workflow which involves him receiving a DAT, recording the DAT to his system and then him uploading the audio to a server. We have tried many times to bypass this entire scenario to no avail. Anyway, I also see quite a bit of location audio still recorded on DAT. Specially if it was recorded overseas, like Latin America for instance still uses DAT's almost exclusively. I think that it will be a while before places like Latin America, Asia and some parts of Europe will decide to drop the DAT, even though there are quite a few alternatives to tape nowadays.

I agree with El Ministro de Minneapolis however that there are tons of much, much better options to record location audio other than DAT. Many, many options. However, I still see this as the only remaining use for DAT's in years to come, and even then I don't think it will be more than a few years.

[Seeee]

’Round here, the second time it flaked out on me.

And that was years ago!

Like the writing on the wall in animal farm.

"All animals are equal, but some more equal than others"

[rockridge98]

I sucessfully fired up my old Tascam DA88's a year ago
and got some archived tracks off them, but
now a client is asking me to do a live multitrack board recording, and I'm thinking
of using the DA88's, since I already own them and they are a lot more portable than the HD rig.
Bad idea? Can one even buy Hi8 tapes anymore?

[James Drake]

are you kidding me?

No. When I say alternative, I mean true alternative. One that does not alter the workflow.

locatioin guys have been using field recorders for years. there are some excellent options. the FR-2, the Marantz (ok, not so excellent), Sony's new portable, Zoom, the Micro Trakker, and the best of the bunch, i think.....Sound Devices.

These all use solid state memory, right? We can't handle acting as tech support for our clients when we hand them a Compact Flash card or whatever and they can't work out what to do with it. Hand them a DAT and they're happy. Most of the time we are handing media over to production girls who don't know the difference between three-phase and a biscuit. They have been asked to pick up a DAT, anything else and we're hanging around for 30 minutes while various phone calls take place.

Also, do these machines need to do some sort of file-management work after you hit 'STOP'? With a DAT, you hit stop and you can take the tape out and you're done. With CD based stuff you obviously have to wait around while it does it's stuff.

DATs are ordered by the 10s and they are considered a general cost. 125min DAT costs around £3, 1GB Compact Flash costs £10-£20 so we can't really swap over to that media and buy it in the same sort of 'throw-away' manner as we do DAT.

None of these field recorders are rack-mountable. What are we meant to do? Gaffer it to the truck?

Seriously, if there was a real alternative to DAT for us we would all be pushing for the switch NOW.

In terms of longevity of the gear we have a good in-house maintenance guy who knows his [bleep], especially when it come to tape machines. We have parts hanging about or we can order 'broken' machines of eBay to cannibalise.

[minister]

These all use solid state memory, right? We can't handle acting as tech support for our clients when we hand them a Compact Flash card or whatever and they can't work out what to do with it. Hand them a DAT and they're happy. Most of the time we are handing media over to production girls who don't know the difference between three-phase and a biscuit. They have been asked to pick up a DAT, anything else and we're hanging around for 30 minutes while various phone calls take place.

Also, do these machines need to do some sort of file-management work after you hit 'STOP'? With a DAT, you hit stop and you can take the tape out and you're done. With CD based stuff you obviously have to wait around while it does it's stuff.

DATs are ordered by the 10s and they are considered a general cost. 125min DAT costs around £3, 1GB Compact Flash costs £10-£20 so we can't really swap over to that media and buy it in the same sort of 'throw-away' manner as we do DAT.

None of these field recorders are rack-mountable. What are we meant to do? Gaffer it to the truck?

Seriously, if there was a real alternative to DAT for us we would all be pushing for the switch NOW.

In terms of longevity of the gear we have a good in-house maintenance guy who knows his [bleep], especially when it come to tape machines. We have parts hanging about or we can order 'broken' machines of eBay to cannibalise.

take a look at the link i provided.

the Sound Devices 722 records onto a Hard Drive. it only takes a second when you hit stop for it to do it's house cleaning, but there is no waiting around fro it to do it';s stuff. also, there is a record buffer so you don't miss anything. hit record and you are going faster than a DAT. i have worked with DAT, trust me, these devices are much faster.

plug the device into your FW port and the files are right there. or, copy them onto the drive fro your client.

they are built like tanks, and arre very small and very protable. i didn't know you needed a rack mountable unit, but plenty of location film guys find good ways to fix them to their cart. also, no tape will get caught in the machine. but like any technology, nothing is perfect.

[Jimmix]

Hello all

Things that will lead to the final death of DATS:
DV dallies, The full adoption of HD, good field recorders with time code (Preferably RAM recorders with a HD backup, dub houses and shipping houses that will change their ways, facilities that will retrack from files.

Things That will keep DATs and DA88s around:
people shooting on film, places that still request surround mixes on DA88, Archives,

BTW when will 3/4" finally dies as well? It is finally going completely away.......I think.
DAT will be like 3/4" it will never actually completely go away. Some where there will be someone who requests it and the studio that still has on running will get $50 to make a dub. Hell I have clients who asks for dubs on cassette for transcription purposes.

DAT, 3/4, cassette etc will simple asymptotically approach death but never completely die..... kind of like my client's making a decision.

btw....... does anyone have a wire recorder?

Jim

[froyo]

By James Drake

When I say alternative, I mean true alternative. One that does not alter the workflow.

Hello. If I understand what you are saying correctly, then nothing new will be an 'alternative' for you. Because these are all tapeless formats, whether flash drives or hard drives, and as such they imply a paradigm shift. They will alter the workflow. For the better as far as I am concerned, but they will alter the workflow, it may not work for you at this point. It's a little bit like the way computers changed the workflow of recording analog back in the day. So this will alter the workflow. Instead of taking a DAT cassete off the recorder and handing it off to someone, you burn a CD or DVD and hand it off to someone. Or hand a disk drive off to somebody. And believe me, these sort of issues have come up and will come up in film/video land on the picture side of things. Runners, interns, gophers and assistants will have to learn a new way of doing things and are learning a new way every day.

But that's par for the course with everybody. Believe me all these choices are legitimate alternatives. It's just up to you to see if you are willing to make the changes necessary but rest assured that there are many, many, many people all over the world doing very, very professional things without DAT's. Check out the link minister gave you and there also choices from many others. From $500 to $10000. Good luck.

[Lee Blaske]

DAT, 3/4, cassette etc will simple asymptotically approach death but never completely die.....

Hmmm... I wouldn't be that optimistic. Without an infusion of freshly made replacement parts (heads, rubber parts, and even chips), DAT machines may well be completely dead while many of us are still alive. Analog 3/4" video machines might outlast them, because they're simply bigger and more robust. It might even be practical to make some analog 3/4" deck replacement parts in a machine shop.

It's a situation just like all the digitally controlled polyphonic analog synths that came out in the 80's (Prophets, Oberheims, multi-Moog, etc.). All of those instruments that used analog SEM chips will be completely dead and unusable within a decade or so. Contaminants in the chip making process will cause all SEM chips to fail. No exceptions. The only way to keep them going would be for someone to re-establish a manufacturing plant that could produce new SEM chips. Unfortunately, doing that would be outrageously expensive.

Meanwhile, the comparatively low-tech technology in Hammond tone wheel organs will ensure that they'll be around for a LONG time (certainly outlasting the new digital Hammond organs that are being manufactured today).

In a perfect world, there are lots of things that could be kept going. Economic realities, however, ensure that they won't.

If no company is manufacturing DAT decks or DAT tape, the medium is effectively dead.

BTW, DA88's are also completely discontinued. The only things Tascam makes that still use tape are a few cassette decks. You can still buy freshly made cassette decks from a number of companies, so for the purpose of discussion, the cassette format is not yet dead.

Lee Blaske

[Sonny Keyes]

Most of the time we are handing media over to production girls who don't know the difference between three-phase and a biscuit. They have been asked to pick up a DAT, anything else and we're hanging around for 30 minutes while various phone calls take place.

Doing commmercials, I sometimes get DATs in from other audio houses that I suspect should know better. I've found that 100% of the time it's because some old-school producer has asked for a DAT (out of ancient habit) and rather than question that request the audio house has blown the cobwebs off the old DAT machine and made one. This obliges me to blow the cobwebs off my old 3800 and pull the tracks back into PT, usually on the second or third pass after the heads clear off.

Personally, I'd rather spend 30 minutes on the phone. Most of the time it would result in an ftp link and no courier at all. Inertia will keep the medium alive until all the old producers have retired.

Sonny Keyes
Ricochet Audio
Toronto