Direct to disk recording

Direct to disk recording refers to methods by which digital audio and video are recorded to portable storage media such as hard drives and DVDs.

Direct to disk can involve permanent or semi-permanent non-volatile recording media. Computer hard disk drives are erasable and rewritable non-volatile recording devices but have been referred to as "permanent" by some manufacturers of direct to disk systems.

Audio recording

In 1982, New England Digital offered an optional package for their Synclavier which allowed recording of monophonic 16-bit 50 kHz audio direct to hard drive. This was the first digital direct to disk audio recorder available commercially. Stereo audio was not immediately available due to data input and output limitations on hard drives of that time.

Today, a majority of digital audio recording is preserved on hard disk drives.

Video recording

*Types:
**Consumer: From Camcorders to TV top models like TiVo to PC computer based recorders.
**High end consumer - Pro: Offline editing systems like Avid, to high-end Camcorders
**Professional portable: For recording TV shows/Movies in the field with Professional video cameras in Digital cinematography.
**Professional Studio: From small systems able to record 2hours to Large multi port systems with a 100 hours of rec/play time

Consumer

*Miniaturization of recording and storage technology for consumer video already allows the non-professional user to directly record home videos to a permanent storage medium such as a DVD [cite web
title = JVC Everio series hard disc handi-cams
publisher = JVC
url= http://www.jvc.co.uk/site/g_series/
accessdate = 2006-11-22 ] .
* DDRs are slowly replacing Consumer: DV,Digital8, Video8, Hi8 , VHS and MicroMV video tape recorders.
*Also see Digital video recorder

Professional portable

*Professional recording equipment using DtD transfers is beginning to appear. In April 2006, Seagate announced the first professional Direct-To-Disc cinematic camera aimed at the independent film-maker (using their disc drives) [cite press release
title = Seagate Hard Drives Enable World's First Digital Cinema Camera With Direct-To-Disc. Recording
date = March, 2005
publisher = Seagate
url=http://www.seagate.com/cda/newsinfo/newsroom/releases/article/0,1121,3148,00.html
accessdate = 2006-11-22 ] .

*Infinity Series by Grass Valley
** Infinity Digital Media Camcorder - Infinity Digital Media Recorder
** REV PRO Digital Media Drive-REV PRO Removable Media

Professional studio

*Professional Studio DDRs are used to replace VTRs and VTR Cart machines, that play out commercials and TV shows.
*"The Media Pool" (1994)- Disk Recorder by BTS was the first [cite web |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb5053/is_199407/ai_n18370236 |title=Media Pool tests the tapeless waters. (BTS digital disk-based recorder) | Broadcasting & Cable | Find Articles at BNET.com |accessdate=2008-01-27] Professional Studio DDR. Received the "Outstanding Achievement in Technical/Engineering Development Awards from National Academey Of Television Arts And Sciences" in 2000–2001 for" Pioneering developments in shared video-data storage systems for use in television video servers -" Philips/Thomson.
*"Profile" from Tektronix Models: "PDR200-(1996), PDR300, PDR400"
*Grass Valley:
**"Profile" "PVS3000, PVS3500" and other models of DDRs
**K2 Media Servers and Media Clients
**Profile XP Video Servers
**Profile XP Open SAN System
** M-Series intelligent video digital recorder (iVDR)
** Turbo intelligent digital disk recorders (iDDRs)
* Rave/SpectSoft
**"RaveHD"
**"Rave2K"
* DVS:
**DVS "Clipster" DDR
**DVS "2K Pronto" DDR
* CarbonHD digital disk recorder
*The Digital video is stored on a Storage area network-SAN Hard Disk storage array.
**Each year Hard Disks get lager and able to hold hours of movies on Tera Byte systems.
** Also see: virtual telecine

Advantages of DDR over tape

* Quicker into the edit: no need to digitise
* The hard disks can store more than most tapes
* Tapes and VTRs are expensive for the higher video data rates

Disadvantages of DDR over tape

* Hard disks are more expensive than tapes
* Hard disks fail more frequently than tapes
* Not practical to store a bank of hard drives for long term video storage.

ee also

*Spelling of disc
*Hard disk recorder

References