Talk:Digital Compact Cassette

Removing paragraph of speculation
''This decision might appear remarkable since Philips had experimented with other recordable-disc media. At that point in time, no company (not even Sony) had been successful in creating a CD compatible read-only/read-write format (equivalent to today's CD-R and CD-RW). The only viable solution with then-current technology was magneto-optics, which Sony chose with the MiniDisc which in turn wasn't remotely compatible with CD media; so Philips' decision to go tape-based made sense, given the technical restraints of then-current technology. This was further compounded by the financial strains the company was experiencing around 1990 and 1991, making the company less enthusiastic about untested technology and preferring a more conservative approach. The hope was to minimize the risk of investing, something that would prove futile.''

I deleted this paragraph, because it poses a number of speculations about Philips' reasons to go with a cassette format as the truth. I originally added the paragraph in an early edit, and I used much more careful wording. Apparently people found it necessary to amplify the wording several times and now this is presented as truth, and it isn't, and I apologize that it happened in the first place.

To make things clear: contrary to what the deleted paragraph says, Philips did have the CD-R format and the CDD-521 recorder ready around that time (although I can't find any factual proof that the CDD-521 existed before 1993, when I first learned about its existence). CD-RW appeared later. Whether the only viable option was magneto-optics, is conjecture.

It's true that Philips was financially struggling around that time but there is no proof that that was what lead to the decision to go with a tape-based format. That was pure speculation on my part.

Jac Goudsmit (talk) 03:53, 17 January 2013 (UTC)

Use of MR heads
Did any analouge cassette decks ever use MR heads ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.112.172.11 (talk) 14:44, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

YES!

Matsushita (Technics) DID, and, I BELIEVE, so did Pioneer. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.181.70.184 (talk) 16:44, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Weasel Words
User:KJRehberg added the Weasel Words tag recently. While I (one of the major contributors to the page) agree that the article contains these words and also a lot of original research, I don't know if I can provide a complete rewrite without those problems, since the only documentation that appears to be available online is my own DCC-FAQ, which was based on information from newspapers, user manuals, service manuals, software and help files, and also conversations with people who worked on various DCC related projects. I'm open to suggestions! Jac Goudsmit (talk) 09:08, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

I wonder how do you report vandalization but half this article is crap —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.85.235.26 (talk) 14:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Since you failed to enlighten us as to which half, I doubt anyone will take any notice of you. 109.156.49.202 (talk) 17:35, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

beer filter
the dcc heads used in these players are currently being used to clear beer: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6121-hifi-failure-helps-to-brighten-beer.html Markthemac (talk) 03:21, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

philips DCC press conference 1991 (audio)
i found an old cassette today, with a recording of the philips press conference in berlin, introducing the DCC: august 31, 1991. maybe of interest to you. i won't post a weblink to my own website in the article ,-) Maximilian (talk) 21:04, 7 September 2013 (UTC)


 * Cool! Just today I also found a nice collection of articles on the LA Times website from the time when DCC was introduced in the USA. The first mention seems to be in October 1990, then there's an article in January 1991 with some speculation about who this "mysterious Japanese company" could be, then there's an article in July 1991 from Reuters that's obviously directly copied from a Philips/Matsushita press release. I added links to some of the articles to the article today. I also found a reference to the CES in Chicago in 1992 where Philips and others were showing off DCC (I always thought it was introduced in Amsterdam at the Firato in 1992 - I went there). Jac Goudsmit (talk) 00:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

List of Digital Compact Cassette Playback Decks for cars (list is complete)
Generation 1:

Philips DCC 801 (has no RDS)

Philips DCC 811 RDS (has no CD-Changer Control)

Philips DCC 821 RDS (has CD-Changer Control for Philips DC-082 & Philips DC-012)

Generation 1+:

Panasonic CQ-DC1

Generation 2:

Philips DCC 822 RDS (has CD-Changer Control for Philips DC-022)

Philips DCC 824 RDS (same as Philips DCC 822 RDS + Philips EA 2001 Wired Remote-Control)

Philips CDCC 850 RDS (same as Philips DCC 824 RDS + Philips DC-022 CD-Changer)

Mìchean (talk) 00:01, 27 October 2015 (UTC)


 * The difference between the 811 and the 821 was that the 821 was able to control a CD changer. Possibly the 801 was the same as the 821 but without RDS. The 822, 824 and 850 are basically the same device (I own one of those, if you find different advertising with some screens lit in green, some in red, it's because it has 2-color LED lighting), but the difference is that the 824 came with the optional remote control and the 850 had the CD changer included. I can't find a service manual online but I'm pretty sure the 822/824/850 is a THIRD generation player: it displays title information on super user tapes (even displays lower case titles generated with the 175 and DCC-Studio). Jac Goudsmit (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

Generations
Philips makes mention of "generations" in various service manuals, data sheets and other literature. I don't have enough information at this time but I may add a complete overview of all recorders to the page some time in the future. Jac Goudsmit (talk) 00:28, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Generation 1=DCC900 and cousins (Marantz, Grundig, Technics, all clones of the 900)
 * Generation 2=All recorders after the DCC900 and before the 951/730. Most of these (including the non-Philips) have a tape mechanism with a head amplifier board and a digital board mounted on the mechanism. The microcontroller on the deck takes commands from the front panel MCU and takes care of all the encoding/decoding, transport, servo, and even A/D/D/A conversion. Philips OEM'd these decks to other manufacturers who would just slap on their own front panels and their own audio input/output stages (analog and/or digital) and sell it under their own names.
 * Generation 3=All recorders with the third generation chipset: The SAA2023/SAA3323 drive processor replaces 3 or 4 other chips, and is capable of reading super-user title information (also very well documented; datasheets are easy to find online). 18 bit PASC codec and (for the home recorders) turbo drive.

Text Mode
One little-known feature of DCC that I recently found out about is "text mode". Many publicly available documents mention casually that prerecorded DCCs can store short titles, long titles and a 21-line 40-column text screen. A video on Techmoan's Youtube channel shows the liner of a DCC tape by the Black Sheep that clearly reads: "TEXT MODE - DCC contains a completely new feature providing VISUAL PRODUCT INFORMATION. This information can be displayed on a screen such as an LCD display or a TV screen, provided the DCC player is equipped with LCD display facilities or a TV connection. Refer to OPERATING MANUAL of your player for further details."

DCC players with this feature were never released, though there are indications that Philips had intentions to do so:
 * The IEC-60958 standard which defines how the S/PDIF format works, has a category code to identify a signal source as a DCC recorder, and an Annex that defines how ITTS (Interactive Text Transmission System) is applied to DCC signals.
 * At one point in time, Philips must have worked on a DCC recorder that looked like a classic cassette recorder. The Dutch Audio Classics has photos of a prototype of this recorder: the DCC-850 (this recorder was never released and later on, the DCC-850 type number was used for a DCC car stereo system). There are pictures here of an identical recorder with an extra circuit board added to the case, with a SCART audio/video connector cut out into the back panel. Some of the IC's have stickers saying "ITTS", "Mode 2" and "921203" (obviously a date which indicates that the DCC-850 was a second-generation recorder). The handwriting on the stickers in both these photo sets appears to be from the same person.
 * There are photos of a DCC Video Box here. The Video Box (which also has markings saying "ITTS decoder") is also demonstrated here. The video is made by my friend, he has many prerecorded DCCs and confirms that the box generates information for each one of those cassettes. It's connected to a first or second generation DCC recorder via a standard digital connector (third generation recorders DCC-730 and DCC-951 don't work; it's not clear why; maybe Philips gave up on the feature or there was not enough space in the firmware ROM since the 3rd generation recorders were capable of editing titles too, which must have taken up considerable ROM space). My friend got the box from someone who worked at a record company; apparently the record company was expected to add 40x21 text information to each tape when they did the mastering, and they had one of these prototype DCC Video boxes to verify that their master tape would work with future DCC recorders that had the video feature.

The ITTS standard (IEC-61886) is not available for free online, otherwise maybe it could tell us more about how DCC uses it (though there are various places on the Web that indicate that DAB (Digital Audio Broadcast), CD-Text and MiniDisc use the same or a similar system).

Obviously there are no reliable references online that will confirm all this information, so I didn't want to add this to the main article. I might still do so if a reliable source of information shows up. Jac Goudsmit (talk) 23:50, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

"New" Source of Information
Much of the information in the DCC Wikipedia article came from me, and though I try hard to stay neutral, I'm aware of the rules about original research. I just found an online version of an article in Stereophile Magazine from April 1991 that has a lot of this information too. In the near future, I'll work the Stereophile article into the Wikipedia article. Jac Goudsmit (talk) 00:02, 2 June 2017 (UTC)

New release
An artist named Jeremy Heiden is trying to gain a little publicity by releasing an album on obscure or long-forgotten formats like DCC. I didn't know where to fit this into the article, or I'd have done it myself. Here's the release and a CNET article about it. 73.247.90.61 (talk) 20:08, 23 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I doubt it's really notable to this article, per WP:NOTNEWS. However, the source states the album is the first pre-recorded release in the Elcaset format, so it should probably be added there. - BilCat (talk) 00:14, 24 July 2018 (UTC)

Still no storage capacity information? Should be about 2 GB similar to DAT-90?
There is a section about data storage in the article but it lacks some basic information. 93.185.19.197 (talk) 12:33, 19 November 2019 (UTC)


 * It should be easy to derive that from the presented information: At 384 kilobits per second, 90 minutes per tape, a tape can hold up to 247 MiB. (384000 kbps * 60 seconds per minute * 90 minutes / 1024 kilobytes per megabyte / 1024 bytes per kilobyte / 8 bits per byte). Jac Goudsmit (talk) 16:45, 20 November 2019 (UTC)