![]() ![]() GoldStar also made a similar dual-deck machine. During the 1990s Sony did market a few VHS VCRs that also feature an 8mm deck to allow convenient transfer to VHS. Although it is possible to transfer tapes (using the VCR to rerecord the source video as it is played back by the camcorder), the VHS copy would lose some quality compared to the 8mm original. Instead it was assumed that the camcorder would be directly plugged into one's TV. Video8/Hi8's main drawback is that tapes made with Video8 camcorders cannot be played on VHS hardware. ![]() Video8 also has an advantage in terms of recording and playback time over VHS-C – 180 minutes vs 45 minutes in SP mode for standard cassettes for each format. This was impossible with Betamax and full-sized VHS camcorders, with all of them having shoulder-mount form factor. The small size of media means that many Video8 camcorders are small enough to hold in the palm of the user's hand. Linear audio did have the advantage that (unlike either AFM system) it could be re-recorded without disturbing the video, doing this in 8mm required a deck that supported digital audio. This cost less than including 8mm's optional digital stereo audio track. ![]() Early Video8 camcorders used mono AFM sound, but this was later made stereo. This meant that Video8's standard audio was of a far higher quality than that of its rivals. By contrast, all Video8 machines used audio frequency modulation (AFM) to record sound along the same helical tape path as that of the video signal. Coupled with the slow horizontal tape speed, the sound was comparable with that of a low-quality audio cassette. Audio on Standard VHS and Beta is recorded along a narrow linear track at the edge of the tape, where it is vulnerable to damage. In terms of audio, Video8 generally outperforms its older rivals. In terms of video quality, Video8 offers similar performance to Beta-II and VHS in their standard-play modes. Yet, several months later at the summer 1986 Consumer Electronics Show Olympus introduced an eight-millimeter camcorder manufactured by Matsushita, and Hitachi was reported to be making eight-millimeter machines for Minolta & Pentax. In April 1986 six Japanese electronics companies-Matsushita, Hitachi, Pentax, Minolta, Mitsubishi, Sharp and Toshiba-announced their lack of plans to embrace eight millimeter in the foreseeable future and instead adopted VHS-C format. Also in 1985, Sony released the first of their compact Handycam range: the CCD-M8, which at one kilogram was half the mass of the CCD-V8, though it had no zoom and supported only manual focus with three focus settings. The same year, Sony released the CCD-V8AF which added autofocus. The first Sony camcorder capable of recording to standard 8mm videotape was the Sony CCD-V8, with 6x zoom but only manual focus, released in 1985 with a price equivalent to $1175, and a mass of 1.97 kg. The Kodak machines were produced by Matsushita Electric, but Matsushita itself had shown no interest in selling the same product under its own name. The first two models were the Kodak Kodavision 22, both over US$1,500. Video8 was launched in 1984, into a market dominated by the VHS-C and Betamax formats. History An amateur grade Video8 Camcorder from the early 1990s Video8 ![]() Much smaller than the competition's VHS and Betamax video cameras, Video8 became very popular in the consumer camcorder market. In 1985, Sony of Japan introduced the Handycam, one of the first Video8 cameras with commercial success. In January 1984, Eastman Kodak announced the new technology in the U.S. As a result, a consortium of 127 companies endorsed 8-mm video format in April 1984. In 1982, five companies – Sony, Matsushita (now Panasonic), JVC, Hitachi, and Philips – created a preliminary draft of the unified format and invited members of the Electronic Industries Association of Japan, the Magnetic Tape Industry Association, the Japan Camera Industry Association and other related associations to participate. Their user base consisted mainly of amateur camcorder users, although they also saw important use in the professional television production field. These are the original Video8 ( analog recording) format and its improved successor Hi8 ( analog video and analog audio but with provision for digital audio), as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8. The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. ![]()
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