Digital8

Digital8 is a digital video (DV) tape format created by Sony. Digital8 tapes are compatible with older analog Hi8 tapes. Digital8 is currently phasing out as the most popular format due to the introduction of HDD Cameras and SDHC Cameras.

Digital8 is used by Sony, Hitachi, and panasonic. The good part about recording on Digital or any other cassette tape is the ability to archive the original recording. Just place the tape in a box or on a shelf it will be there for the next 20 years.

The down side is all Cassette tape mediums require real time capture to your editing computer. Normally you connect the video camera to your computer using firewire (IEEE-1394). The open your editing software and capture it.