Digital videotape records digital information to create audio and video. But the data doesn’t have to be audio and video.
When transferring video from a digital videotape to a computer, you should plan on using about 13GB of hard drive storage per hour of footage. Considering the footage is coming off a digital source, you might have wondered if you can write computer data to the tape. After all, a 60-minute MiniDV tape can be purchased for less than $10.
Around 2001, Tim Hewett decided to find out if he could accomplish what many of us wondered. He began to experiment with writing data from his computer to a digital videotape. The result of his experiment is the Mac OS X application DV Backup.