Digital 8 vs. miniDV

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kene555
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Digital 8 vs. miniDV

Post by kene555 »

What is the difference in quality, in your opinion?
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RE: Digital 8 vs. miniDV

Post by Gyro »

D8 could be the best quality in the world, but you'll never get anything out of it, due to the line of cameras that support D8. Unlike, mini DV which unleashes it's highest quality standard on something like a DVX100B or an XL2.
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Post by DEDFX »

I have a D8 handycam and theres really no difference between it and miniDV except D8 cameras are usually of lower quality but the tapes aren't as expensive as mini.
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Post by kene555 »

So its not as much the tape quality as the camera quality?
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Post by Gyro »

Exactly.
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Post by Epsilon »

Digital 8 camcorders are more or less considered obsolete today. MiniDv is the current standard. However, this will all be changing within the next decade as memory storage cards improve.
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Post by Lawriejaffa »

Thats a very peculiar opinion Gyro? Regarding Digi 8,

Eseentially Digi 8 is DV where as Mini DV is well 'mini' dv on smallter tapes (that was how it was marketed.)

In terms of technical specification they have identical bitstreams (and the digi 8 has other bits and bops of interesting note - check articles)

However in the end of the day i think the point Gyro alludes to is that if the Digi 8 had cameras like the XL etc using it - it may have been proven a more superior format?!

Often for a time at least the digi 8 camcorders that were out - were significantly better than their mini dv counterparts (but this is consumer camera wise) and years ago -i.e. about 6, 7, 8 years ago roughly.

Annnyway to cut a long story short, if the only camera you have is a decent digi 8 consumer cam or an equally old mini dv camcorder you may find if the digi 8 has a better lens on it (they often did) that it would be better.

But digi 8 the best in the world!?!? hehe
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Post by Ornsack »

At the end of the day they both use the same codec at the same bitrate, so technically it's about whether you have a good camera or not.

You could store DV on to VHS at the same quality, the tape just acts as storage.
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Post by Zacatac927 »

Ornsack wrote:
You could store DV on to VHS at the same quality, the tape just acts as storage.
No!

putting DV onto VHS is Digital to Analog, which ive done a thousand times for TV, it kills picture quality... the tape does not act as storage, well it does, but bad quality

don't do it!


oh and also viewtopic.php?p=99850&highlight=#99850
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Post by Ornsack »

Zacatac927 wrote:
Ornsack wrote:
You could store DV on to VHS at the same quality, the tape just acts as storage.
No!

putting DV onto VHS is Digital to Analog, which ive done a thousand times for TV, it kills picture quality... the tape does not act as storage, well it does, but bad quality

don't do it!
Ok you've got this all wrong, you goose!

Remember how old computer games used to be stored on audio cassette? Think that.

Video aside, you could store all kinds of data on to VHS. In fact, back in the 90's my school used to back up all the schools computer data on to VHS tapes over the weekend. I think a VHS tape can store nearly 4gb if I remember rightly.

So I'm not talking about just recording your DV footage on to VHS. I'm honestly not that thick in thinking there's no quality drop ;) I'm talking about actually storing the data digitally on a VHS tape, not the video itself in an analogue format

Another way of looking at it is by looking inside a floppy disk. The floppy bit is pretty much the same stuff as the stuff used in VHS cassettes.


Although I'd say the best way of looking at it is that Digital 8 footage can be stored on to normal Hi8 tapes, and we all know analogue Hi8 quality isn't much better than VHS
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Re: RE: Digital 8 vs. miniDV

Post by Gyro »

Gyro wrote:D8 could be the best quality in the world, but...
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Post by kene555 »

Alright! Thanks for the info.

I was hired to help film at a wedding, and the guy uses only Digital 8. So I was wondering if there was a difference, and why he didn't upgrade. But i guess its not an upgrade.

So thanks for clearing that up.
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