Uses of DAT
Professional recording industry
DAT was widely used in the professional audio recording industry in the 1990s, and is still used to some extent today, as the archives created in the '90s are still widely used, although most labels have a program in place to transfer these tapes to a computer-based database. DAT was used professionally due to its lossless encoding, which allowed a master tape to be created that was more secure and did not induce yet more tape noise (hiss) onto the recording. In the correct setup, a DAT recording could be created without even having to be decoded to analogue until the final output stage, since digital multi-track recorders and digital mixing consoles could be used to create a fully digital chain. In this configuration, it is possible for the audio to remain digital from the first AD converter after the mic preamp until it is in a CD player.
DAT's were also frequently used by radio broadcasters. Until recently, they were still used by the BBC as an emergency broadcast that would initiate if the player detected a lack of noise continued for more than a pre-determined time. This would mean that if for any reason the broadcast from the studio stopped, the DAT would continue broadcast until normal service could be resumed.
Amateur and home use
DAT was envisaged by proponents as the successor format to analogue audio cassettes in the way that the compact disc was the successor to vinyl-based recordings; however, the technology was never as commercially popular as CD. DAT recorders remained relatively expensive, and commercial recordings were generally not made available on the format. However, DAT was, for a time, popular for making and trading recordings of live music, since available DAT recorders predated affordable CD recorders.
In the U.S., the RIAA and music publishers continued to lobby against DAT, arguing that consumers' ability to make perfect digital copies of music would destroy the market for commercial audio recordings. The opposition to DAT culminated in the passage of the resulting Audio Home Recording Act of 1992, which, among other things, effectively imposed a tax on DAT devices and blank media.
Computer data storage medium
The format was designed for audio use, but through the ISO Digital Data Storage standard it has been adopted for general data storage, storing from 1.3 to 80 GB on a 60 to 180 meter tape depending on the standard and compression. It is sequential-access media and is commonly used for backups. Due to the higher requirements for capacity and integrity in data backups, a computer-grade DAT was introduced, called DDS (Digital Data Storage). Although functionally similar to audio DATs, only a few DDS and DAT drives (in particular, those manufactured by Archive for SGI workstations) are capable of reading the audio data from a DAT cassette. SGI DDS4 drives no longer have audio support; SGI removed the feature due to "lack of demand".
In November 2005, Sony announced that the final DAT machines would be discontinued the following month. However, the DAT format still finds regular use in film and television recording, principally due to the support in some recorders for SMPTE time code synchronization, although it is slowly being superseded by modern hard disk recording equipment which offers much more flexibility and storage. In 2004, Sony introduced the Hi-MD Walkman with the ability to record in linear PCM. Hi-MD has found some favour as a disc-based DAT alternative for field recordings and general portable playback.
Archived audio problem
The discontinuation of DAT replayer production leads to a significant problem regarding audio archives, since a tremendous amount of recordings from the mid-80's until about 2000 exist solely on DATs. This means that this material is locked up on these tapes.
Even if some larger broadcasting facilities or studios still have some DAT recorder/players in their internal stock or could find a handful of second hand models, each unit can inevitably suffer from wear-out in the spinning drum heads, winding mechanisms, brakes, etc. The best solution would be to transfer the information off the DAT "tapes" and into computer-based hard drive systems via an AES/EBU digital connection. Even though these "transfers" have to happen in real-time which can make this process tedious and time consuming, an exact clone can be made using this process, where no digital information will be lost or compromised. This is unlike running the DAT through an analog soundboard and then into the hard drive system, which would defeat the purpose (since it would cause loss of data through the digital-analog and analog-digital conversions).