Re: [ARSCLIST] Risk assessment tool Q3--DAT

[Don Tait <Dontaitchicago@xxxxxxx>]

  We at WFMT used DATs for some years for a lot of things, but problems 
developed. Given the number of people who used some of them in one way or another, 
such things as dropping them might have happened (Tom Fine mentioned the 
damage that can do). But according to our engineers there seemed to be problems of 
other types,
including even slightly inexact winding/rewinding that damaged the signal on 
the tape. Whatever the cause, the catalyst for us to abandon the technology 
was what happened to two or three years' worth of Peter van de Graaff's programs 
for the Beethoven Satellite Network, which is produced at WFMT. All were on 
DAT. Peter found that every one of the tapes was useless. The engineers 
attributed it to imprecise winding -- it couldn't have been mishandling by Peter, 
because only he handled them and he is very fastidious. So our players might not 
have been functioning perfectly.

  This is only WFMT's experience of course, and others whose DATs still play 
well have clearly had better luck. We heard that the CBC abandoned DAT at the 
time we did, because of similar trouble. David Lennick probably knows whether 
or not that's correct.

  Again, the irony remains: Mylar-based tapes from (say) 1957, both mine and 
WFMT's, play perfectly today as do non-backcoated Mylar tapes from later 
years. 

  Don Tait