Video8 - Sony's forgotten ambitions & the crazy Walkman Compo

Comments · 2.6K

• JO

  @joeylopezdesign · 9 years ago

  being a former radio shack manager - I’ve been yelled at, screamed at, had customers try to physically attack me, throw things at me, knock over store displays, and even break a window - over the fact that there has never. ever. been an 8mm/hi8 to VHS tape adapter, it’s never existed, no matter how we explained it, no matter if we just said “oh sorry we don’t have that” no matter if we showed them a web article or a video of people explaining it - customers believed that they HAD SEEN it with their own eyes, and it was <b>not</b> VHS-C it was 8! of course - they were wrong, but it never mattered - they’d freak out no matter how calm we stayed. we had to be lying, we had to be doing this TO them (literally a woman burst into tears accusing us of trying to keep her wedding video from her for an unknown reason demanding to know why!) we were always just a bunch of idiots. <b>sigh</b>. so glad I left that life and will never deal with the frontline public again - just creative directors and art directors and maybe a product manager here and there. thank god.

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• BI

  @binaryguru · 9 years ago

  MEGA BASS, most essential feature ever.

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• EE

  @Eexpers · 6 years ago

  nothing has ever encouraged me more to push that lid than a sticker saying &quot;never push this lid&quot;

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• JA

  @jamesgreer7615 · 7 years ago

  The US Navy used Hi8 throughout the early 2000s. We got all the latest blockbuster titles sent out to the deployed fleet. They used Sony EVO-9500 and EVO-9850 decks.

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• HE

  @heedmywarning2792 · 7 years ago

  in the submarine community, we had 8mm decks for playing back movies. Every so often a company would send us new movies on 8mm format. One of the most popular movies was Highlander.

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• PE

  @Petardozord · 6 years ago

  I really like aesthetics of early 90&apos;s and 80&apos;s devices.

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• RE

  @RegularCars · 9 years ago

  You rolled around in a Mk1 MR2 back in the day? BADASS!

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• RU

  @RusteyGuy · 9 years ago (edited)

  I work for a Vacation Charter airline in Canada, and can confirm we were using Hi8 tapes in our IFE (right across most of our fleet at the time) until 2015 when the format was officially retired. At that time they swapped the tape players with a hard drive system that was designed to fit perfectly in the tape player&apos;s bay.

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• BR

  @Browningate · 8 years ago

  Putting all those pieces together reminds me of connecting the Sega Genesis, Sega CD, and the 32X.

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• VI

  @videovoidtv · 7 years ago (edited)

  Hey. I used to be an editor for an airline inflight Entertainment company and while we didn’t get nice box art like your examples, I can guaranty that we were using Hi8 tapes until about 2017. By that point it was only for our smaller clients that used older airplanes. Mostly in Central and South America. Changing the media system on a perfectly fine airplane would cost up to $100,000 so most airlines waited until the planes were retired and bought newer planes.<br><br>Also there was a fire during the Japanese earthquake that destroyed the last factory that still produced Hi8 tapes. I spent years chasing down the last available tapes to use for commercial purposes. Any brand any level of quality... it was insane.<br><br>Amazing video. So great to see this old tech. Well done.

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• 78

  @78deathface · 9 years ago

  Sauron is watching you...

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• NO

  @nonenoneexistant1206 · 7 years ago

  Wow Techmoan was a hottie in the 90s!

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