This research is mainly concerned with the enhancement of data packing densities on magnetic recording media by applying digital signal processing. Partial response signalling is the major concern since it is the main school of thought for data recovery in recent years. Besides investigating signal processing techniques, a minor objective of this research is to characterize various VHS tapes for digital recording. Many head-medium interface parameters can be estimated from the wavelength response and the pulse response of the magnetic recording channel. These parameters include head turns-efficiency product, head-to-medium spacing, record depth and magnetization transition length. The transport system used in this research is a domestic VHS recorder {a helical-scan tape machine) and the medium is S-VHS tape. An experimental test-set was built around the video recorder. The test-set is composed of a complete digital recording channel, a system evaluation toolkit and a human interface. The human interface includes the computer, the software and the interface between the computer and the test set. Of particular interest in performance measurements is the minimization of error rate as a function of system parameters. These parameters include record current, threshold level, sampling phase, roll off factor of equalized pulse, channel type, etc. Experiments were conducted to demonstrate these parameters affecting tlie performance of the recording system at high packing densities.