Recording format for an audio signal and a VCR circuit and method of operation for producing same

A method for recording an audio signal, provided by a VCR, on a magnetic recording medium on which a plurality of tracks are formed, each track being divided into plural sectors with an edit gap for independent editing being disposed between adjacent sectors, at least one of the sectors on each track being a video sector for recording a video signal thereon, the remainder of the sectors of each track being audio sectors, the audio signal having N channels, N being a predetermined integer greater than 1, said method comprising the steps of:

• (a) digitizing the audio signal input from an audio signal source for each of said N channels to thereby produce N channel digital signals;
• (b) respectively storing said N channel digital signals produced by step (a);
• (c) converting respective signals stored in the step (b) into N recordable signal channels suitable for recording onto the magnetic recording media;
• and
• (d) distributing said N recordable signal channels produced in step (c) between predetermined tracks so that each audio sector contains audio information from a single corresponding recordable signal channel and so that the number of audio sectors recorded on each track is determined according to the equation:
• a=N/M, where a is the number of audio sectors per track and M is a predetermined integer greater than 1 and which is a factor of N.

A VCR audio signal recording apparatus for recording an audio signal on a magnetic medium wherein a plurality of tracks are formed on said magnetic medium, each track being divided into plural sectors with an edit gap for independent editing being disposed between adjacent sectors, at least one of the sectors on each track being a video sector for recording a video signal thereon, the remainder of the sectors of each track being audio sectors, wherein the audio signal has N channels, N being a predetermined integer greater than 1, each audio sector containing audio information from a single corresponding one of said N audio channels, said apparatus comprising:

• N analog-to-digital converters for converting the audio signal, having N channels, input from an audio signal source, into a digital audio signal having N channels;
• N memories for storing, respectively, the N channels of the digital audio signal;
• N heads for recording the output of said N memories in predetermined respective audio sectors;
• and
• a control signal generator for generating a head enable signal, which enables a first N/2 heads while a second N/2 heads are disabled, and a memory enable signal provided to said each of said N memories,
• whereby one of said first and said second of said N/2 heads records data stored in a selected one of said N memories onto said audio region of the track simultaneously with the other of said first and said second of said N/2 heads records data stored from the same selected memory so that the audio signal representing the corresponding channel can be recorded in an adjacent track on said magnetic medium, wherein N is a multiple of 2.