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What a superb machine and what a failure. This is how one can see in 2018 the Technics (some markets Panasonic) SV-P100 Digital Audio Recorder introduced in 1981. This new PCM Digital Audio Cassette was intended for home and studio applications. It uses a very high-quality VHS video tape transport mechanism with advanced video heads and quartz locked direct drive motors. This technology was chosen because it was already available and the bandwidth of the video signal allowed to record Digital Audio instead of the video signal. Since the digital signal is recorded on the tape's video tracks, the space usually used for audio is left free. The SV-P100 uses these extra tracks for "jump" and "search" marks.
It should be noted that this technology was already on the market but it consisted of a separate PCM unit that was used in conjunction with a conventional video recorder. Even though the Technics SV-P100 is significantly smaller than the two-box solution this recorder remains in audio history as an almost unknown device (There was an even more rare silver model). Rapid changes in this field meant that the world standard for Digital Audio implemented for CD players became the 16-bit resolution while the 14-bit resolution used by the Technics was no longer considered to be satisfactory. The Technics SV-P100 was capable of a frequency response of 2 Hz - 20 kHz (+/-0.5 dB) and a Dynamic range of more than 86 dB.
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