as posted above, the audio industry has been there, done that... with ADAT! (rhyme unintentional). they were 8 tracks of digital audio, generally CD-quality or slightly better in the later systems. the downsides as a recording medium were that you still had to rewind all the freaking time, the tapes weren't very durable, and if you wanted more than 8 tracks, you needed to string a bunch of the machines together and keep all the tapes sorted out. so as soon as hard disk recorders and DAWs (Digital Audio Workstations, such as Pro Tools) became options, the industry ran away from ADAT and never looked back. most modern pop/rock/rap recordings would simply not be possible without DAW's. even when ADATs were in use, most ADAT machines didn't have especially great converters or anything, so they never sounded very good... the chief advantage was they were cheap, and the tapes were really cheap compared to analog tape. a reel of quality analog 2" tape can cost $150 or more!
also, don't forget DAT! We had a stereo digital audio tape format for a while there. like ADAT, the rewinding thing really killed it for people, even though you could record to them. they are still in use sometimes in studios, where the engineer will record to one continuously, to catch practice takes, noodling, and talking in between "real" takes of songs. the theory is that you never know when someone will do something genius, and you better have it on tape! if the tape runs out and no one did anything genius that you didn't already capture with something else, you just rewind and record over it again.
edit: i forgot to mention that the 8-track digital thing was also done with Hi-8 camcorder tapes, and was basically identical to ADAT (could even sync with the machines), but was preferred because of the smaller size of the tapes. but the Hi-8 stuff never really caught on because Pro Tools came along and changed the ballgame.
Facebook
Twitter