Versatile Video

By JOSHUA QUITTNER

In the same way that the malls start playing Christmas carols in November, I usually begin hinting at gift ideas well in advance of Father's Day. I'll admit that starting in March this year was a bit crass, even for me. In my defense I feel compelled to point out that if you're angling for a digital video camcorder, you need more time to make your case.

I figured I'd present the whole thing as a learning opportunity. "Now what?" asked my wife suspiciously, when the FedEx guy unloaded a special Saturday delivery from Sony Electronics. "A Digital8 HandyCam Camcorder," I said evenly. "Reviewing it for the column." She then asked what "Digital8" is. Yessssss--I was in!

I pointed out that the old analog camcorder some friends lent us last year--roughly the size and weight of a parking meter--isn't exactly state of the art. Video cameras began to shrink more than a decade ago with the introduction of 8-mm tape in cigarette pack-size cassettes that were far smaller than the bulky VHS tapes that fit in our borrowed recorder. Quality improved in 1989 with the introduction of Hi8 film, and it caught on with some 10 million consumers, making 8 mm and Hi8 the most popular format. (The closest competition is VHS-C, a compact cassette that fits in an adapter that plays in a standard VHS deck.)

You'd think that given our love of things digital, U.S. consumers would have embraced the Mini-DV camcorders when they arrived in 1995. Yet fewer than 1% of home users have bought one. The rigs are not only expensive--the low end finally dropped below $1,000 this year--but they're also incompatible with the other two formats. What happens to those tapes of Aunt Sonya's 80th-birthday party?

That's where Sony's recent introduction of digital Hi8 cameras comes in, I explained to my wife. The cameras are backwards compatible and can play 8-mm or Hi8 tapes. You can even connect your old 8-mm camera to the Digital8, convert your old analog Aunt Sonya movies to digital and inflict them on future generations. The new Sony cameras have CD-like sound recording as well. And the four models are relatively cheap, starting at $799 and running as high as $1,299. The high-end unit, which features a nifty still-image feature and comes bundled with photo-manipulation software, just started shipping last week.

The only downside I found was that at 2 lbs., the Digital8 is bigger than most digital cameras, which can weigh half as much and are half as large, as in the case of Canon's ZR Mini-DV Camcorder ($900). And while Digital8 has better resolution and color saturation than Hi8, it requires twice as much tape: a 60-min. Hi8 tape will record only 30 min. of digital video.

My wife pointed out that because we don't have any legacy 8-mm tapes, the charms of the Digital8 may be lost on us. But the benefits of digital video cameras are still compelling. You can create a huge variety of special effects and generally enjoy far more control over how images look. Also, digital tapes are much easier to edit on a PC; an analog tape first must be converted to digital, which is cumbersome. Perhaps the best news is this: for the next year, Sony is expected to have the only Digital8s on the market. That may well put pressure on Canon, Sharp, JVC and Panasonic to drop the prices of their standard digital cameras. Let's just hope they do it by Father's Day.

For more on digital video camcorders, go to timedigital.com Questions for Quittner? E-mail him at jquit@well.com