Quote:
Originally Posted by ARC Tech-109
In retrospect it's too bad the Digital-8 format didn't make it past the consumer market before the other DV formats took center stage.
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I have been asking this question for a while: why develop a completely new cassette family for DV instead of using existing ones, like Betamax for Betacam or VHS for M, and I could not find a definitive answer. Versions I considered and rumors I came across from other people so far:
- DV cassettes could be scaled easier than, say, 8-mm cassette.
- DV tape is narrower (6.35 mm or 1/4-inch) than 8-mm, so tape savings and thinner cassette.
- MiniDV cassette is much smaller than 8-mm cassette, which means more compact recorders, but then again, could 8-mm cassette be scaled down?
- 8-mm cassette would not have enough recording time (in practice, 40 minutes on 8-mm cassette vs 60 minutes on MiniDV is comparable, and in the olden days ENG cassettes were 20 minutes anyway).
- Probably the biggest one: JVC and Panasonic agreed to join DV if it would be a new format for everyone including Sony, so everyone would be in the same position. Panasonic made 8-mm machines for other brands, but not under its own name. JVC, I believe, made none. So, they did not want Sony to have competitive advantage with 8-mm cassette, otherwise Sony could take, say, the CCD-VX3 (VX1 in Europe), replace analog encoder with digital, and voila! Instead, Sony had to rip out the 8-mm transport and install MiniDV transport to create the VX1000. If this is a true reason, I wish JVC and Panasonic were less vengeful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ARC Tech-109
I can't speak for the VHS camcorders as I have always gone to great lengths to avoid the format in general but Panasonic did have some high end "prosumer" decks in the NV model line that had a very good TBC. As the format itself was geared for the home market very little was developed and refined for the more demanding broadcast and production arenas, unfortunately it takes more than a good TBC to bring the format to a level required for prime use.
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JVC and to lesser extent Panasonic aggressively marketed SVHS towards pro market when M and then MII fizzled. In some aspects SVHS is better than Umatic, all it needed were pro connectors to integrate it into a plant. Pro-looking VTRs, consoles, TBCs were made, SVideo as well as Dub connectors, including provisions for timecode and I believe there were even claims of 1-frame precision editing.