When AFM Stereo was introduced to 8-mm video?

[DVtyro]

Does anyone know the timeline regarding AFM Mono, AFM Stereo and PCM on 8-mm video? AFAIK, AFM Mono was from the beginning. PCM was introduced in 1986 if I am not mistaken. When AFM Stereo was introduced?

This article from 1986 reads:

“The quality of the hardware was the determining factor,” explained Tim Clott, Paramount Home Video senior vice president and general manager. “We didn’t want to put our films out on systems that didn’t play them back properly. The picture quality of 8mm has improved greatly over the last year or two. It’s now comparable to the best half-inch (VHS and Beta) systems. Now there’s good-quality digital sound too. The earlier version of 8mm didn’t have digital sound.”

To me, the only benefit of PCM Audio vs AFM on 8-mm is that PCM can be re-dubbed without disturbing the video, which is not a factor for a pre-recorded movie. Regarding audio quality, 8-bit @ 32 kHz sampling rate is worse than 20-20K of AFM Stereo. This leads me to the conclusion that the second channel was added to AFM after PCM was introduced. Am I wrong? If someone knows for sure, I would appreciate the info. Even better, if you have a link!

And while I am at it, were 120-minute tapes available from the very beginning in 1984, or were introduced later? They sure were available in 1986.

Am I correct in my thinking that 8-mm was originally designed as a camcorder format only, hence 60-min tapes and AFM Mono, but after Sony realized that Beta was going to lose to VHS, Sony decided to push 8-mm as a general usage format to replace Beta. 150-min tapes became available. There were even 180-minute tapes, although I've never held one in my hands.

[ARC Tech-109]

AFM audio was native to the 8 MM video format as Sony used the full width of the tape for recording. It was adopted from the BetaHiFi method and used a multiplexing method similar to BetaHiFi of two carriers split between the A & B heads then added stereo and PCM as the technology matured.
It was a shrunk down beta wrap that was conceived as a consumer camcorder format. People wanted smaller and easier to use models and the Sony BetaMovie was all but dead, VHS-C was cumbersome with the adapter and those had an appetite.
There's some confusion on who the father is of the 8 MM video format, I've seen claims that Kodak was the first and Matsushita was the OEM of those however I did have my hands on a Sony brand portable at the start of my freshman year 1984 at Audio Innovations... a pivotal moment for a techno nerd. There's also a Sony pro model camcorder and docking deck that was used for news gathering however despite the high luma resolution of the format it was still a color under system and yielded about 30 lines of color resolution where BetacamSP was 120 lines color and 330 lines luma with a far better timebase stability. The Digital 8 was strictly a consumer format and uses the same 4:1:1 sampling of DV, it was also adapted to be a data backup format by Exabyte.
The PCM side was not as good as VHS HiFi despite the hoopla. It had a limited high end, I've never seen a deck that could do a digital audio dub due to the way everything is recorded without a way to store the video field and writing new information. This is native to the digital betacam format where everything is segmented and the drum runs at some 5400 RPM. The professional Tascam DA88 also has a punch in/out recording method for each of the 8 channels and it records 16 bits at 44.1 & 48 khz using a Hi8 tape. PCM was introduced in 1985 and I have a demo tape from that era of various music videos.
180 min tapes were probably for the PAL markets, the tape there runs slightly slower than NTSC making a 150 run for 180 and marked as such. I'm not sure about the tape lengths at the start.
IMO it was a good format for the day but it never had the market saturation of VHS, people didn't want two different formats and while Sony did market some very nice home Hi8 VCRs it never caught on, Blockbuster didn't rent Hi8 movies. VHS was cheap and it fit the budget with the perpetual flashing 12:00 on the front.

[DVtyro]

This is all good info, thanks!

What about AFM Stereo? What was it introduced? In particular, was it introduced before PCM audio or after? If you have a link to a publication about the introduction of AFM Stereo that would be great!

Do you know when 120 minute tape was introduced?

[ARC Tech-109]

Unfortunately I don't have any hard docs, I worked as a "golfer" at a boutique audio store in the 1980s and remember the products well but didn't save any of the sales rep stuff. There's some stuff floating about the internet but like my 54 year old memory it's not perfect. I believe the AFM stereo was around the early days of 1985 and digital just before the holiday shopping season, the demo tape I have has the A-Ha video of Take On Me and that album was released October of 85, the video was in MTV rotation that late summer. Wikipedia has some historical evidence that seems to align with what I remember but it also contradicts other timelines.
120 min tapes came about with Hi8 as that required a metal particle spec. Digital audio was a dumbed down version of the Sony PCM-F1 that was mated to a Sony SL-2000 but as I understand the sample & depth was limited due to bandwidth to keep it out of the AFM allocation.

[DVtyro]

I was wondering why the Paramount rep from the quotation above linked his company's release of movies on 8-mm to digital sound, because AFM Stereo is no worse.

His mention of digital audio either indicates that AFM Stereo was not available in 1986 when first movies were released on 8 mm, or that he was simply hyping up digital. I wonder whether it is the former, and if yes, when AFM Stereo became available.

Yeah, I've read wikipedia and even added some of my own to it

A quick aside regarding Kodak's first 8-mm camcorder: Kodak was just riding the 8-mm train. I suppose Kodak wanted to move from Super 8 to 8-mm video, the number clicked nicely in the heads of its marketing people. But Kodak did not have anything of its own. The development was spearheaded by the Japanese and Philips. Tape was developed by Fuji and TDK. Kodak's camcorder was made by Matsushita. Kodak simply bought a product made in Japan and branded it "Kodak". I guess Kodak people wanted to sell the same stuff for twenty years like they did with film - this did not work with video, not to mention that Kodak's camcorder was outdated, having vacuum pickup tube instead of a CCD. In just a year Sony released a CCD-based Handicam, then started improving the format with AFM Stereo, PCM audio, Hi-Band video. Kodak did nothing of that, and Matshushita did not feel following Sony either, because Matsushita was pushing [S]VHS-C together with JVC. And this is how Kodak failed miserably. Kodak made its last movie camera in 1982. Meh.

Anyway, I am still in the dark regarding AFM Stereo. I guess I need to go through 1980s video magazines in hope for clues.

[DVtyro]

ME tape was expected as early as 1984, but did not become available until at least 1986, maybe later.

[DVtyro]

Many 8-mm tapes, especially early ones, have "P6" prefix. I wonder what does it mean?

EDIT: It seems P6 means NTSC, P5 means PAL. Why these prefixes? Record/play duration was different in NTSC vs PAL:

PAL play time ≈ NTSC play time × 0.7

So, a P6-120 ≈ P5-85. I guess this was the reason 8-mm was not as popular in Europe as in the U.S.

[DVtyro]

Ok, after half a day going through 1980s video magazines, the timeline is like this:

• 1984: 8-mm video is introduced with AFM Mono. Tapes are 60 and 90 minutes for NTSC region, shorter for PAL.
• 1985: By the end of the year PCM stereo audio is introduced as well as 2-hour MP tapes, this allowed for Hollywood movies to be released in 8-mm.
• 1986: No ME tape yet, expected next year. ME tape is supposed to be thinner, hence more play time.
• 1987: Kodak still believes in 8 mm, despite it still offers the same subpar camcorder made by Matsushita, with which it launched 8 mm in January 1984.
• 1989, January: Sony uses more compact FL Mechanism. The CCD-V11 has 2/3-inch sensor with 420K pix, wow! No mention of AFM Stereo.
• 1989, June: Canon A1 Canovision Hi8 camcorder reportedly was the first 8-mm machine to offer AFM Stereo. Canon's website reads: "Canon developed the A1 with the Hi8 video standard after various companies reached agreement upon and announced the high-band recording system for 8mm camcorders in 1988. Targeted at advanced amateurs and pros, the A1 offered high-quality sound adopting a new FM stereo standard as well as extensive manual functions."
• 1990: Sony released CCD-V101, which also has Hi-Fi stereo audio. Is it the second one after the Canon? In the user manual, Sony links Hi-Fi stereo to Hi-band upgrade of 8-mm video.
• 1997: TRV44 is standard 8 camcorder, having Hi-Fi stereo audio, so Hi-Fi stereo is not limited to Hi8.

Question: why PCM was augmented/replaced with Hi-Fi stereo? Was it cheaper to implement? Why the heck Sony haven't designed it in the first place? (Well, I guess they wanted a narrow audio band to maximize video band, since this originally was a camcorder standard?)

[ARC Tech-109]

Didn't want to overshadow PCM then market it as a lower cost alternative? Hard to say but I know AFM stereo was around as it was used for the semi-pro market line like the Sony EVV series. Could also be the PCM side was seen as something of a failure as the AFM stereo had a better sound and didn't need the DBX companing. With Sony anything is possible.

My answer to the small formats: https://audiokarma.org/forums/index....0-jpg.3005489/

[DVtyro]

^ This is a very nice Type C machine, but not very practical. As if 8-mm is practical today... Anyway, I created a video about 8-mm video formats: Video8, Hi8 and Digital8:  8-mm video explained - a short history, different tape formulations, recording types and how to digitize it.

[centralradio]

Hi all..I have the Kodak 8mm camcorder here with its cradle ..

It worked great at the time.