A few thoughts.

IF separate forums, they could be based on a specific family or series to keep numbers manageable.

Use simple coding for column entries where multiple possibilities exist. The column could contain one or more entries. Some examples:
Formats: V, CV, V8, SV, CSV, H8, B, SB, D8, DV, HDV (CV, CSV for compact VHS/S-VHS, B for Beta, SB for Super Beta)
TBC: N/A, Li, Fl, Fr (i.e., none, line, field, frame, where frame implies field and line)
DNR: N/A, [#] (where {#} the number of settings
Video Outputs: C, S, Comp, FW, H, SDI (composite, s-video, component, Firewire, HDMI)
Audio Outputs: R, X, O, C (RCA, XLR, Optical DIgital, Coax Digital
Audio Modes: M, S, 4 (mono, stereo, 4-tracks)
Standards: N, P, S (NTSC, PAL, SECAM)
Aspect Ratios: S, W, A (4x3, letter-boxed wide [360 image lines], anamorphic wide[480 images lines])
Time Code: L, V, R, N (LTC, VITC, RCTC, Native to the format)
Control: N/A, I, L, R, O (Infrared remote, LANC, RS232, Other)
and there may be others of interest.

Also would be good to include a place for special notes as to issues or positives not obvious from the other columns; e.g., susceptable to SMD capacitor problems.

Wow that's confusing, what's wrong with VHS, S-VHS, VHS-C, S-Beta ....etc?

Could use Google Sheets, since it allows collaborative online editing of spreadsheets. We'd need to control access somehow though since otherwise it'll turn into a mess, maybe it had a feature that makes it do the owner has to approve edits...

Perhaps a WIKI?

Good ideas! For my purposes, year of introduction is important. I have been adding placeholders in the spreadsheet for the Sony "CCD" models with the thought the newer models might have fewer capacitor issues. At this point, I have 70 8mm cameras in the spreadsheet. I'm sure this could easily grow to 100+. 8mm Decks should probably be included in the 8mm category, but personally I am starting to shy away from these based on capacitor issues.

The grouping of devices might be by Manufacturer-Year. For example, these are the 2005 Sony "CCD" models:
CCD-TRV138/TRV238E/TRV338/TRV438E

This flyer shows the 2002 offerings:https://docs.sony.com/release/CCDTRV608guide.pdf

The earliest camera in the spreadsheet at this point is 1998 - 9 years of 8mm products if made current through 2007:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_mm_video_format
That's a good idea... is it possible to create new entries on Wikipedia? I've never tried this.

EDIT: Actually....Sony_DCR-TRV900

EDIT2: This is doable. I just created a Wikipedia acct.

Maybe we give this a try... If Google drive will work, I can post and send links. PM links would limit access.

Agreed.

I hate letter salads. Real words and real-world abbreviations can be used. There is enough screen real estate to allow for it, if planned well.

What is being suggested here actually ties into a review system being built into the forum. :wink2:
That is coming in several months.

I'm not fond of Google Docs collaboration for long-term, only short-term (days, weeks). An exported OpenOffice or Excel speadsheet needs to be exported as backup, and attached to this thread, after major additions/changes. Eventually the Google Docs spreadsheet can go away, and this thread can serve as the final version. As HBB360, these things can, and often do, turn into a mess -- before getting abandoned, then purged/deleted over the longer term.

Google Docs may not be needed. This thread can serve as the collaboration (discussion, instructions to add/remove/etc), and a single person can make the spreadsheet, and with that I can make the thread sticky, guide, and integrate it into the glossary. I do have lots of info to add, but no time to do so just yet. So please start without me, and I'll come in later.

@GrouseHiker - I don't know if you've seen it but I posted a spreadsheet I created when researching D8 camcorders for use as a transfer source. I posted it here in the thread that preceded this sticky on 8MM and Beta devices. I later learned it was not kosher to post an Excel spreadsheet due to security concerns... It was/is clean as far as I know. I could also send the data to you in some other form if preferred.

I don't know what more I could fundamentally contribute to this project but would try as best I could.

I would like to see this effort result in some kind of succinct summary that is kept up to date within itself and probably not directly written to by everyone. I've really struggled to find what I'm looking for in the long, long, threads like the ones on VHS vcr's and AIW's (drivers and hacks, etc.) because the useful information ends up spread out over so many pages. Those are great as historical archives and probably a good way to provide input to the summary page, but are difficult to use directly as "look up" resources.

my :2cents:

BW

Thanks - I downloaded your sheet, and it contains a lot of good info. I'll try to merge with the sheet I posted above.

As far as I can tell, xlsx is an allowable file upload format... I scan everything I download anyway.

I agree with your sentiment on having a go-to source on equipment. I'm searching for another playback device now...

I had long since wanted to create detailed guides for both Betamax and 8mm with regards to the various format extensions (both video and audio, things like SuperBeta etc.) and the decks that could play them. Things like lack of time and forum formatting get in the way.

I have moved this along quite a bit (100 devices so far), but have not tried to capture PAL models.

The original spreadsheet contained much more information than we need.. e.g., I don't think we care about recording...

Row titles highlighted in yellow seem important, but there may be others.

The light green highlights are information I have confirmed in the OM's - Om's are hyperlinked just below the device name.

It might be good to keep the original information intact and just hide extraneous rows. We're not in collaboration mode on this sheet yet, so give comments and we will wait for Lord Smurf directive. At some point, maybe we collaborate via Google Docs and someone can bring in PAL equipment.

Edit: By the way, working on this helped me avoid a small disaster: I had pulled the trigger on a CCD-TRV138 on eBay and then realized the thing didn't have s-video!!!! I contacted the seller and we switched to a CCD-TRV318 he also had for sale. Whew...

Some do care about recording. There is a nostalgia crowd to consider. That will actually be separate entry on my (S)VHS VCR guides. There are some models to seek for recording, some to definitely avoid.

I have a few PAL cameras that I can give input on, as do our PAL users.

NJRoadfan has some posts/attachments in the forum. Seek those out.

I also have an email or PM with attachments on best decks, but not yet sorted. Both my PM and email inboxes are too full.

Ok - you define the row titles to keep (or add), and we can start getting this sheet under control.

I would say any VCR or camcorder with good playing capabilities such as S-Video out and HiFi stereo should be a good recorder as well, With the exception of some camcorders that are not built in VTR, so it's easy to add VTR notation to the camcorders that are capable of recording, This information can be found in the user manual, so any member who owns the camcorder or has time to check out the manual online can contribute to confirm such info.

I'm part of the recording crowd, but I have to agree with latreche that if the device has good playback it usually has good recording. When it comes to VCRs the only thing that I look for is an S-Video input on the back to be able to hide all the cables in my setup at the bacl.
Unfortunately, when it comes to Hi8, I haven't seen any camcorder with VTR that is PAL. The CCD-TRV87E that I got recently lists the S-Video and composite as inputs (and they are, in Player mode the input signal from composite and s-video shows up on the screen) but the manual seems to be copied from the NTSC model (87 without an E) since it shows the VTR recording controls at the top which are not present on the PAL machine. It doesn't work with an IR remote that has a VTR recording button either unfortunately.

Would a section group "Video In Connections" including "VTR Capable" be the way to define this? For example, this group header and row titles:

Video-In Connections

Digital Video (DV) - aka Firewire or Sony i.Link

S-Video (Y/C) Analog

VTR Capable

This looks good, maybe have VTR Capable in parentheses next to the header, like this:

Video-In Connections (VTR Capable)

Digital Video (DV) - aka Firewire or Sony i.Link

S-Video (Y/C) Analog

I feel like it's clearer and quicker this way, you can see if it's VTR capable at a glance. For example, if you need it to be VTR Capable and it isn't you don't need to read about the inputs and you can skip it.

Btw. I just got around to checking out your spreadsheet, its very impressive and thorough! I don't know if it's on purpose but you haven't added a line for Video8 LP recording, or I'm missing it. Also, are you planning to color code the PAL machines or will they be in a separate group? I'll do some research on my three PAL machines (69E, 77E and 87E) to fill all of your data points and I'll send it over so you can integrate it if you want.

That makes sense.

I was probably assuming no one would care about this... not true?

It might be easier to integrate the PAL machines with the NTSC machines, since many will have an NTSC "mate" and the cells will just copy over. However, the machines are now grouped by common Operating Manual (borders at the top). Maybe the PAL OM group sits right next to the NTSC group?

We will have to add a NTSC/PAL row.

Now that you mention it, I think you're right. I think most people will choose to record in Hi8, maybe you should get rid of the standard 8 SP as well?

I think it'll be fine that way, group them together with a PAL/NTSC tag in a row. Though you should be careful of slight differences. I'm gonna take the CCD-TRV87E as an example again since it's the only one I have - the CCD pixel count varies slightly between PAL and NTSC (larger in PAL according to specs in manual). As far as I remember it's the only difference, it's a slight one but it's worth paying attention to.

The two CCD-TRV66 camcorders I got do have a record button on the panel, though I haven't tested. I think the functionality often was techically present but disabled on PAL models for some tax reasoning, and it may be possible to enable by adjusting the ROM via service mode using a remote thing. Doing this seems to have been more of a thing with D8 and DV camcorders to enable av in -> DV out. I made a parallel to lanc cable (mainly to try to enable always on VTR mode on a miniDV camcorder with a broken ribbon cable), but I didn't manage to get it to work, will probably look into it again at some point though. Was a bit of a hassle as the LANC app only seemed to work on win95/98.