Editing Digital Compact Cassette (section)

{{Short description|Digital audio recording format}}
{{distinguish|Digital Audio Tape}}
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{{Infobox media
| name          = Digital Compact Cassette
| logo          = Digital Compact Cassette logo.svg{{!}}class=skin-invert
| image         = [[file:Digital Compact Cassette front.jpg|frameless]][[file:Digital Compact Cassette rear.jpg|frameless]]
| caption       = A Digital Compact Cassette sent to the readers of [[Q (magazine)|''Q'' magazine]]
| type          = [[Magnetic cassette tape]]
| encoding      = Precision Adaptive Sub-band Coding ([[MPEG-1 Audio Layer I]])
| capacity      = Theoretically 120 minutes; longest available tapes were 105 minutes
| read          = 
| write         = Multi-track stationary head
| standard      = 
| owner         = [[Philips]], [[Panasonic|Matsushita Electric]]
| use           = Digital audio 
| extended from = [[Compact Cassette]]<br>[[VHS]]
| extended to   = 
| released      = {{Start date and age|1992}}
}}

'''Digital Compact Cassette''' ('''DCC''') is a [[magnetic tape sound recording]] format introduced by [[Philips]] and [[Panasonic|Matsushita Electric]] in late 1992 and marketed as the successor to the standard [[analog signal|analog]] [[Compact Cassette]]. It was also a direct competitor to [[Sony]]'s [[MiniDisc]] (MD), but neither format toppled the then-ubiquitous analog cassette despite their technical superiority, and DCC was discontinued in October 1996. Another competing format, the [[Digital Audio Tape]] (DAT), had by 1992 also failed to sell in large quantities to consumers, although it was popular as a professional digital audio storage format.

The DCC form factor is similar to the analog compact cassette (CC), and DCC recorders and players can play back either type: analog as well as DCC. This [[backward compatibility]] was intended to allow users to adopt [[digital recording]] without rendering their existing tape collections obsolete, but because DCC recorders couldn't record (only play back) analog cassettes, it effectively forced consumers to either replace their cassette deck with a DCC recorder and give up analog recording, or keep the existing cassette deck and make space to add the DCC recorder to their setup.