High Density Digital Recording on Metal Particle, Metal Film, and Ba-Ferrite Tapes

Metal particle (MP) and metal evaporated thin film tape media (ME) have been developed for high density 8mm video and digital audio applications, and are more recently finding their way to digital data applications. In this study we compared the high density digital recording performance of several commercial Hi8mm MP and ME tapes with that of experimental Ba-ferrite (BaFe) tapes with longitudinal orientation (lower Hc and SQ but much higher S∗ and much lower SFD than the MP tapes). The BaFe tapes have lower output signal at low densities but a flatter frequency response and higher D50 density than either the MP or ME tapes. Measured with high saturation flux density very narrow gap heads, the BaFe tapes outperform the MP tapes in all respects (including absolute signal output) at densities above 85 kfci, and have performance equivalent to that of ME tapes at extremely high densities (130-160 kfci).