Young Black Haired Girl Posing With A Magnetic Tape

Later improvements by other companies, particularly Sony, lead to the development of helical scan and the enclosure of the tape reels in an easy-to-handle cartridge. Nearly all modern videotape systems use helical scan and cartridges. Videocassette recorders are very common in homes and television production facilities though many functions of the VCR are being replaced. Since the advent of digital video and computerized video processing, optical disc media and digital video recorders can now perform the same role as videotape. These devices also offer improvements like random access to any scene in the recording and "live" time shifting and are likely to replace videotape in many situations.
Data storage
In all tape formats, a tape drive (or "transport" or "deck") uses motors to wind the tape from one reel to another, passing tape heads to read, write or erase as it moves.