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A Hi8 mystery
Here’s a mystery for the forum. I’ve been working on a project for a company who has headquarters in Minnesota. We were debating having me fly up to MN (from FL) to interview a company official when it became known that the company indeed had a video production department. We decided to let the people up there do the interview & send it to us to use. I figured it’s a big company & they probably have state of the art equipment…so I was suprised to see them send me a Hi8 tape (which they are calling digital). Here’s where it gets strange…since I have no way to get Hi8 into my system, I broke down and ran to Circuit City for a Hi8 camera. I brought the camera back and played the tape and there was nothing on it but snow (like bad video snow). I then tested the camera with one of my old Hi8 recordings & it played back fine.
When I called and asked the person who sent the tape what was going on, she told me that a ‘digital’ camera was used and that the tape played back fine for her. I sent the tape back and I’m asking her to burn me a DVD to use. In the mean time I’m just wondering ‘how is this possible’? So I wanted to ask the forum if there is any way a Hi8 tape can be recorded on using a camera other than Hi8—and play back on that camera, but not on a Hi8 camera. I appreciate any comments. I’m scratching my head on this one.
-Andrew -
3 Replies
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There are two flavors or of hi-8, digital and analog.
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Digital 8 records the same information as the DV format, but uses the 8mm tape. The digital 8 format has the main advantages that the tapes are somewhat cheaper than DV, the cameras are cheaper because the motor mechanism is the same components as regular 8mm, and many camera allow you to put in an analog 8mm tape, and play it out digitally through firewire (without timecode, of course).
It is really an upgrade format for analog 8mm users. If you capture to Final Cut, you can use the DV presets, because it’s the same data format.
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Thanks for the reply. I guess you learn something new everyday.
-Andrew
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