Embedded Files
VHS & SVHS
VHS & SVHS
The staple of analogue media with a runtime of up to 6 hours a tape, VHS/SVHS most vastly used analogue media in the world in terms of the sheer volume of recorded media.
These normally have stereo HiFi for late 80s and on wards tapes, and Linear mono for consumer tapes but Linear stereo was common for pro decks and camcorders.
VHS-C (Compact)
VHS-C (Compact)
The smaller compact size of the VHS cassette meant for hand handheld camcorders & small portable recorders this about half the size of a full cassette, with up to 90min of runtime in LP (Long-Play) or 45-60 in SP (Short-Play)
Typically these will have first-generation or master original recordings of home video media directly from camcorders.
BetaMax
BetaMax
The consumer entry in the Beta format family while thwarted by VHS in sales never the less millions of tapes and decks were made until the 2010s.
First gen beta tapes typically only have linear mono audio we normally provide this as stereo or "double mono" to avoid playback issues in our files.
MiniDV
MiniDV
Sonys widly adopted digital tape format after Digital8.
These are digital tapes and have uncompressed PCM digital audio and compressed DV/MPEG-2 video alongside timecode and datacode data.
SD being 720x480 NTSC (4:1:1) (59.97i) & 720x576 PAL (4:2:0) (50i)
HDV (1080i)/(1080p)/ (720p) 4:2:0 digital video at 25-30mbps but also contains extra data such as shooting config which is the exact settings a camara used during capture for each frame/scene.
MiniDV has a max size of 20.8GB per tape with 60min SP 90min LP runtimes for DV/HDV and 41min runtime for DVCAM.
Sony 8mm Video8/Hi8/Digital8
Sony 8mm Video8/Hi8/Digital8
The Sony 8mm tape format while being slightly wider then MiniDV offered the same runtimes 60min SP and 90min LP tapes for Digital8 (DV25) and the Analog formats offered up to 2.5 hours SP and 5 hours LP.
Video 8 was fairly better then VHS HQ quality, with Hi8 being around about the same quality as SVHS but notably with RCTC digital time/date rather then VITC timecode.
Unlike VHS however PCM audio was common on the higher end camcorders used for basic news and prosumers, the tape format is a very reliable and magnetically stable one if stored properly.
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