HDCAM is a high-definition video digital recording videocassette version of Digital Betacam introduced in 1997 that uses an 8-bit discrete cosine transform (DCT) compressed 3:1:1 recording, in 1080i-compatible down-sampled resolution of 1440×1080, and adding 24p and 23.976 progressive segmented frame (PsF) modes to later models.

The HDCAM codec uses rectangular pixels and as such the recorded 1440×1080 content is upsampled to 1920×1080 on playback.

Similar to MPEG IMX, the helical scan head drum is 80 mm in diameter.

The helical tracks read by the video heads in the drum, are 22 microns wide.

[6] HDCAM SR uses MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Studio Profile[5] for compression, and expands the number of audio channels up to 12 at 48 kHz/24-bit.

In the mid-2000s, many prime-time network television shows used HDCAM SR as a master recording medium,[7] but it is no longer in widespread use.

[8][9] As with the 440 and 880 mode, SR Lite utilizes the MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Studio Profile but decreases the bit rate to 220 Mbit/s for 60i and 183 Mbit/s for 50i.

SR Lite is locked at 4:2:2 color sampling but still maintains 10 bit pixel depth.