Editing Digital Compact Cassette (section)

=== "User tapes" and "super user tapes" ===

Some Philips documentation distinguishes between "user tapes" and "super user tapes". Super user tapes are tapes that have a continuously recorded stream of audio, with continuous absolute time codes relative to the start of the tape, and contiguously numbered tracks. In contrast, non-super user tapes may have one or more section that has no absolute time code and tracks that are unnumbered. The Renumber button that makes the recorder find all the track markers on a tape and makes sure that all track numbers are contiguous (which might not be the case if the user splits or merges tracks), only works on super-user tapes.
Other than absolute time codes and track numbers that may become discontinuous or unavailable on a non-super user tape, it's impossible to distinguish between user tapes and super user tapes.

To make sure that the absolute time codes remain continuous (and the tape remains a super user tape), the user should start every recording at a point where absolute time codes are available. Some recorders have an APPEND button to find the end of the last recording automatically and prepare the recorder for the next recording. When recording mode is engaged (with or without the APPEND function), the electronics actually read the tape for a fraction of a second, to synchronize the internal absolute time counter with the time recorded on tape, and then start the actual recording at the beginning of a tape frame so that the resulting data stream has a continuous absolute time code.{{cn|date=November 2022}}