ISO/IEC 22051:2002 specifies the physical and magnetic characteristics of magnetic tape cartridges, using magnetic tape 12,65 mm wide so as to provide physical interchange of such cartridges between drives. It also specifies the quality of the recorded signals, the recording method and the recorded format, thereby allowing data interchange between drives by means of such cartridges.

The linearly recorded format, called Super Digital Linear Tape 1 (SDLT 1), has 448 tracks. It uses a combination of magnetic and optical technologies known as Laser-Guided Magnetic Recording (LGMR). The back surface of the tape presents optically detected servo marks.

The format is derived from the DLT Format. It provides for a capacity of 110 Gbytes of uncompressed user data, or typically 220 Gbytes of compressed user data.

Together with a standard for volume and file structure this document provides for full data interchange between data processing systems.