A codec for digital studio recording of HDTV

The digital recorder is one of the most important components in the HDTV studio. However, the main problem of digital HDTV recording is the enormous tape consumption, which is given by the high bit rate of HDTV signals and by the limited recording density of magnetic tape technology. A possible solution of this dilemma is the usage of digital source coding techniques, by which the input bit rate of HDTV signals can be compressed in order to increase the playing time up to 90 minutes and more. Therefore a research project was started at HHI in order to study the feasibility of VCR coding for studio applications. During this research project a DCT (discrete cosine transform) codec, which fulfils all the requirements of studio recording, has been developed on the basis of computer simulations. This DCT codec has recently been built up as experimental hardware system. The coding technique and VCR codec are described