D-3 is an uncompressed composite

digital video Digital video is an electronic representation of moving visual images (video) in the form of encoded digital data Digital data, in information theory and information systems, is information represented as a string of discrete symbols eac ...

videocassette Videotape is magnetic tape used for storing video and usually sound in addition. Information stored can be in the form of either an analog or digital signal. Videotape is used in both video tape recorders (VTRs) and, more commonly, videocasset ...

format invented at NHK and introduced commercially by

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

. It was launched in 1991 to compete with

Ampex Ampex is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name AMPEX is a portmanteau, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excellence.AbramsoThe History ...

's D-2. D-3 uses half-inch metal particle tape at 83.88 mm/s (compare to D-2's 19 mm and 131.7 mm/s). Like D-2, the

composite video Composite video is an analog video signal format that carries standard-definition video (typically at 525 lines or 625 lines) as a single channel. Video information is encoded on one channel, unlike the higher-quality S-Video (two channe ...

signal is sampled at four times the color subcarrier frequency, with eight bits per sample. Four channels of 48 kHz 16–20 bit PCM audio, and other ancillary data, are inserted during the

vertical blanking interval In a raster scan display, the vertical blanking interval (VBI), also known as the vertical interval or VBLANK, is the time between the end of the final visible line of a frame or field and the beginning of the first visible line of the next fra ...

. The aggregate net (error corrected) bitrate of the format is 143 Mbit/s, and because the codec is lossless, it has been used in data applications.

Camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-sw ...

s were available which used this format, and are to date the only digital tape camcorders to use a lossless encoding scheme. The D-5 format, introduced in 1993 by Panasonic and marketed as D-5 HD, uses the D-3 transport and tape running at roughly double D-3 speed. The D-3 transport in turn is derived from the

MII A Mii ( ) is a customizable avatar used on several Nintendo video game consoles and mobile apps. Miis were first introduced on the Wii console in 2006 and later appeared on the 3DS, Wii U, the Switch, and various apps for smart devices. Miis c ...

transport. D-3/D-5 tapes come in small (161 mm × 96 mm × 25 mm), medium (212 mm × 124 mm × 25 mm), and large (296 mm × 167 mm × 25 mm) cassettes, with format-specific recognition holes. Maximum D-3 runtimes (in the Fujifilm lineup) are 50, 126, and 248 minutes. The D-3 format is now regarded as obsolete. In the early 1990s the BBC embarked on a massive project to copy its older video tapes onto D-3 for archival, but the D-3 cassettes themselves have become obsolete and are being transferred to modern digital video standards. There is doubt over whether the surviving D-3 machines will last long enough to play the 340,000 tapes which the corporation holds.

References

External links

Technical Glossary of Common Audiovisual Terms: D3

International Association of Broadcasting Manufacturers Technical Reference on Video Tape Recording Formats, January 2000
{{Video storage formats Video storage Audiovisual introductions in 1991 Television terminology

See also

References

External links