[P1] DVD region codes?

[Joe Jones]

Yeah, I remember when Digital 8 came out. The reason I think that it 
didn't catch on was that it was on the back of standard 8mm, which 
itself competed with VHSc, the small VHS tapes. With a simple adaptor 
you could play those tapes in your normal VCR, so it became the format 
of choice, even though the tapes were bigger than the 8mm ones - you 
were restricted to playing them back in your camcorder or buying a 8mm 
deck. Digital 8 was the first time that consumer equipment had gone 
digital, but it was ahead of its time.

I would imagine that the tape runs faster for a reason - it increases 
the track length, enabling you to store more data for each frame (or 
field - I don't know how digital 8 arranges data on the tape). In order 
to increase quality, Sony probably did two things with Digital 8 - 
increased the running speed of the tape, and increased the track width, 
both of which would reduce the effective recording time on the tapes.

Joe

On Wednesday, Jul 16, 2003, at 08:02 Europe/London, George Slusher 
wrote:

>> Have you ever compared the size of the VHS tape cartridge and the
>> digital cartridge?
>
> That's not what I said. I am NOT talking about a VHS tape. I do know 
> the
> difference.
>  Please read this again:
>
>>> Ever notice that an 8mm digital tape only holds 1 hour,
>>> whereas an analog camcorder can record 2 hours on the SAME tape? The
>>> reason is simple:
>
>
> I mean the very SAME tape. IOW, the same physical object--take it out 
> of
> one camcorder and put it into another. (In fact, my Digital 8 camcorder
> will play, but not record, 8mm and Hi-8 tapes.) If you take that same
> cartridge and put it in an 8mm analog camcorder, it will record 2 
> hours.
> If you put it in a digital camcorder, it will record only 1 hour. Why 
> is
> it exactly 1 hour, rather than some odd number, which would be the case
> if it were merely a difference of data density? The tape runs through 
> the
> camcorder twice as fast. That's not necessary, as shown by the mini-DV,
> which packs the same time into a much smaller package and shorter tape.
>
> Joe Jones added:
>
>> There are two sizes for the DV format - MiniDV and full size DV. The
>> mini ones are the most common, since they suit the camcorder market
>> very well. As noted before, they are only 60 minutes long. This is a
>> technical limitation imposed by the amount of tape they can squeeze
>> into it.
> and
>
>> On the large format tapes, there are more varied running times. I 
>> don't
>> have any large format consumer DV tapes, but I have plenty of pro 
>> DVCAM
>> tapes, they range from 60 minutes right up to 184 minutes, they are
>> about half the volume of a normal VHS tape (about half as deep, 2/3 as
>> wide and 2/3 across). Again, if you flip the DVCAM deck into consumer
>> DV mode, recording time goes up by a third or more due to the decrease
>> in the track width.
>
> I am talking about the _Digital 8_, not the Mini-DV. It uses the same
> size cartridge (and, indeed, can use the SAME cartridges, unless you 
> buy
> the manufacturer's bs that it requires a "high grade" tape) as 8mm and
> Hi-8 camcorders. Here are the dimensions of the cartridges:
>
> VHS   7-3/8" w x 4-1/16" deep x 15/16" thick (volume about 28.1 cu in)
>
> 8mm   3-23/32" w x 2-7/16" deep x 17/32" thick (volume about 4.82 cu 
> in)
>
> (FWIW, using your numbers, 1/2 deep x 2/3 wide x 2/3 across = 2/9 of 
> the
> volume, not 1/2. That's 22% vs 50%. An 8mm cartridge is about 17% of 
> the
> volume of a VHS cartridge.)
>
> Sony's original digital camcorders used this cartridge and many still 
> do.
> I can't give you a direct link, as Sony's website adds session IDs to 
> the
> URL, so that it's 4-5 lines long. Start at:
>
> http://www.sonystyle.com/
>
> Click on the digital cameras/camcorders link on the left. On the next
> page, click on "Camcorders." Notice that there are mini-DV and Digital 
> 8
> camcorders shown on that page, with the Hi8 camcorders below.
>
> I ran into this same confusion about two weeks ago, with a guy who is a
> certified DV producer (works for a local public-access channel). He, 
> too,
> talked about mini-DV (which he had with him) and the pro version. I
> showed him my camcorder. His initial reaction was that it wasn't 
> digital.
> "Gee, why does it say, 'Digital 8' right on the body?" I can run my 
> Sony
> TRV-110 right into iMovie with a 6-pin-to-4-pin FireWire cable. The 
> guy's
> reaction was, "Is this something new?" No, it's several years older 
> than
> mini-DV. I don't think that it's "broadcast quality," but it is 
> certainly
> digital.
>
>
> George Slusher/Eugene, OR
> gslusher at rio.com
>
>
>
>
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