Abacus
Camcorders and VCRs
professional quality features, is usually switchable from Hi8 to normal 8mm formats, and requires a special TV to appreciate the 'Hi1 part Hi8 Camcorders are also much smaller and lighter than VHS or S-VHS. Hi8 (and S-VHS) decks and camcorders get some of their better picture quality from the fact that they record and output the video signal in Y/C (another term for non-composite, luminance/chrominance). This means that you can output your Hi8 signal to an S-VHS deck and vice versa. Hi8 also makes use of the fact that it uses a metal base tape
rather than an oxide base.
On the down side Hi8 is HiPriced. The least expensive Hi8 Camcorders and VCRs will cost you about $2,000 on up. Also I wouldn't expect to
see a lot of rental movies in the Hi8 format in the near future. And you will probably have to dub down eventually.
ED Beta
Finally, at the very top of the "consumer11 line is ED Beta. If you can afford it definitely go for ED Beta. The picture quality is very high, there are lots of professional level peripherals, you can produce nearbroadcast quality. Camcorders are small and lightweight, and ED Beta will stand up to more generations than other formats.
The biggest disadvantage (apart from the fact that few people own ED Beta equipment) is the price. ED Beta is close enough to broadcast, professional level equipment that the prices are at broadcast, professional levels too (ED Beta decks cost over $3000, camcorders arc over $7500) You also won't find dozens of models to pick from or too many peripherals in your local K-Mart.
So what does all this mean to an aspiring Desktop Video producer? Which systems arc the best for the money? What do you really need and what can you do without?
Like everything in this world you get what you pay for. If money is no problem then you should be looking at the ED-Beta, S-VHS or Hi8 equipment. This equipment will give you a better signal, higher quality and morc professional features. You can always do a final dub in VHS format if you need to (and you probably will, unless you are only going to be playing back on your own equipment).
Of these three, I would recommend the Hi8 format for a few reasons. The size of the Camcorders is always a consideration and Hi8 units arc smaller and lighter. Next, the quality of the output is slightly better than S-VHS. While you could dub S-VHS to Hi8 the quality will always be slightly less than the original which means a Hi8 to S-VHS dub will be close to 100% S-VHS quality but an S-VHS to Hi8 dub will definitely be less than 100% Hi8 quality. While Hi8 doesn't have the resolution of ED-Beta it is about half the cost plus there are and 25