Quality of Digital8 vs Hi8 Digital8 a format produced soley by sony record a digital signal on to old Hi8 tapes. The signal is the same standard as MiniDV and every consumer DV cam out there. The quality is good, but when you compare it to MiniDV you can see a difference (much of this is due to camcorder quality not format quality however). The tapes cost just as much as they would with a 8mm or Hi8 camcorder. They're the same. There is a disadvantage however with Digital8 vs. Hi8/8mm, the tapes are shorter. Because Digital8 has to squezze a complex signal on a tape that was not designed for it, the tape has to run at double speed. This means that on a 2 hour Hi8 tape you are only going to 1 hour on Digital8. This can be a big problem for some videographers who do long events. As for image quality, Digital8 is going to be superior -- that is if the price level is the same. Put it this way, a $5000 Hi8 camcorder (which are out there), is going to put out a better picture than your dinky TRV320 Sony Digital8, because the optics are better. But a $1000 Sony Hi8 is not going to perform as well as a Digital8 camcorder. Because the prices of Digital8 camcorders are so close to those of Hi8 camcorders, if not a $100 or two more, you should almost always go with Digital8 because you will get more bang for the buck.

Quality of MiniDV vs Hi8 Almost any MiniDV camcorder is going to beat out an Hi8 camcorder. Especially if it has multiple CCD's. Unlike Digital8, MiniDV tapes are designed for a digital signal so they put out crisp clear pictures with great colors. MiniDV camcorders however, are going to be much more expensive than Hi8. Most cost above $750 and the ones with good features cost above $1000. If you have to money and are looking for quality you should go with MiniDV. But if you are on a tight budget and you decide that you can not afford a MiniDV, don't bring yourself down to a Hi8, compromise and go with Digital8.

Tape Transfer/Quality Besides actual camcorder quality, Digital is going to beat out analog in tape quality and playback quality in consumer camcorders. Why? Well Digital has something called error correcting. When a camcorder writes a picture to a tape in analog, it writes it as electronic signals. When you view the tape the playback head on the camocrder picks these electronic signals up and interprets them and displays them on the screen. But every time this is done, a little is lost. For example when copying a tape. The camcorder that is playing the tape has to interpret the signal on the tape, then it has to send it through the wire, and the other vcr that is recording the tape has to interpret the signal and convert back to electronic signals on its tape. In the process due to static and the fact that the signal must be interpreted the picture looses quality. Everytime you copy a tape it is called adding a generation.

If you've copied a tape, then copied the copy of the tape, then copied the copy of that tape and done that 5 times you have five generations. By the time you are on the 5th tape it will be almost unwatchable if it is analog, you will not be able to see anything. Here is where Digital really excells. Instead of saving the picture to tape as electronic signals, it saves the picture to the tapes as 1's and 0's. Binary or computer language. These 1's and 0's store the information on the tape. They are paired in groups of 8 1's and 0's, each 1 and 0 descriping a different part of the picture. In addition to those 8, there is one more 1 and 0. This is called the parity bit. This bit (1 or 0) describes if the other 8 1's and 0's when added up together are odd or even. Now when your camcorder digital transfers its digital tape signal, it sends those 9 1's and 0's, when the computer or tape deck on the other end recieves those 9 1's and 0's, it adds up the first 8 and sees if they are odd or even and if that number corresponds to the ninth digit. If it doesn't correspond, it asks the camcorder on the other end to resend it or it will correct it itself. This is called error checking and is what makes digital so great.It allows for perfect copies with no picture quality loss, you can make 100 copies of a copy of something and you will see virtually no image degration. This is especially good with editing. When editing you have to transfer your video to your computer or editing system, edit it, and transfer it back. When editing analog this equals 2 or 3 generations and you will see a lower picture quality. But when editing digital you will not loose and picture quality, its great!

Editing One of the biggest advantages of Digital over analog is in editing. Digital Camcorders have a port on them called FireWire. FireWire is how the images are transfered digitaly like is explained above. You can use FireWire to connect your camcorder to your computer. This allows you to transfer your videos seemlessly to your computer for editing. You can get FireWire cards for your computer for as little as $150. Its not asthough you can not transfer analog video to your computer to edit it though. Before FireWire was around there were (and still are) many analog video cards that took your analog video and transfered them on to your computer for editing. You can find these cards still today, many companys such as Pinnacle still make them. The downside however is that when you transfer your video you loose quality.

So Which do I Buy Digital is clearly better than analog. But if you want to do it inexpensively there are some downsides. I would recomend taking a look at both Digital8 camcorders and MiniDV and seeing which is best for you. Seriously consider if you will edit and if you need the editing or the higher picture quality. The most important thing with a camcorder is that you enjoy it, not that its the best one out there. Look at what you need and buy a camcorder accordingly, most importantly have fun!