generally outperforms its older rivals. Audio on Standard VHS and Beta is recorded along a narrow linear track at the edge of the tape, where it is vulnerable to damage. Coupled with the slow horizontal tape speed, the sound was comparable with that of a low-quality audio cassette. By contrast, all Video8 machines used audio frequency modulation (AFM) to record sound along the same helical tape path as that of the video signal. This meant that Video8's standard audio was of a far higher quality than that of its rivals.(VHS Hi-Fi could not be used on camcorders, because the required four audio heads could not be placed on the miniaturized drum.) Early Video8 camcorders used mono AFM sound, but this was later made stereo. This cost less than including 8mm's optional digital stereo audio track. Linear audio did have the advantage that (unlike either AFM system) it could be re-recorded without disturbing the video, doing this in 8mm required a deck that supported digital audio. The small size of media means that many Video8 camcorders are small enough to hold in the palm of the user's hand. This was impossible with Betamax and full-sized VHS camcorders, with all of them having shoulder-mount form factor. Video8 also has an advantage in terms of recording and playback time over VHS-C - 150 minutes vs 40 minutes in SP mode for standard cassettes for each format. Video8/Hi8's main drawback is that tapes made with Video8 camcorders cannot be played on VHS hardware. Instead it was assumed that the camcorder would be directly plugged into one's TV. Although it is possible to transfer tapes (using the VCR to rerecord the source video as it is played back by the camcorder), the VHS copy would lose some quality compared to the 8mm original. During the 1990s Sony did market a few VHS VCRs that also feature an 8mm deck to allow convenient transfer to VHS. GoldStar also made a similar dual-deck machine. Ultimately, Video8's main rival in the camcorder market turned out to be VHS-C, with neither dominating the market completely. However, both formats (along with their improved descendants, Hi8 and S-VHS-C) were nevertheless very successful. Collectively, they dominated the camcorder market for almost two decades before they were eventually crowded out by digital formats, such as MiniDV, 8cm DVD. Hi8 To counter the introduction of the Super-VHS format, Sony introduced Video Hi8 (short for