The 8mm video format refers informally to three related videocassette formats. These are the original Video8 (analog recording) format and its improved successor Hi8 (analog video and analog audio but with provision for digital audio), as well as a more recent digital recording format known as Digital8. Their user base consisted mainly of amateur camcorder users, although they also saw important use in the professional television production field. In 1982, five companies — Sony, Matsushita (now Panasonic), JVC, Hitachi, and Philips — created a preliminary draft of the unified format and invited members of the Electronic Industries Association of Japan, the Magnetic Tape Industry Association, the Japan Camera Industry Association and other related associations to participate. As a result, a consortium of 127 companies endorsed 8-mm video format in April 1984. In January 1984, Eastman Kodak announced the new technology in the U.S. In 1985, Sony of Japan introduced the Handycam, one of the first Video8 cameras with commercial success. Much smaller than the competition's VHS and Betamax video cameras, Video8 became very popular in the consumer camcorder market. History Video8 Video8 was launched in 1984, into a market dominated by the VHS-C and Betamax formats. The first two models were the Kodak Kodavision 2200 and 2400, both over US$1,500. The Kodak machines were produced by Matsushita Electric, but Matsushita itself had shown no interest in selling the same product under its own name. The first Sony camcorder capable of recording to standard 8mm videotape was the Sony CCD-V8, with 6x zoom but only manual focus, released in 1985 , and a mass of 1.97 kg. The same year, Sony released the CCD-V8AF which added autofocus. Also in 1985, Sony released the first of their compact Handycam range: the CCD-M8, which at one kilogram was half the mass of the CCD-V8, though it had no zoom and supported only manual focus with three focus settings. In April 1986 six Japanese electronics companies—Matsushita, Hitachi, Pentax, Minolta, Mitsubishi, Sharp and Toshiba—announced their lack of plans to embrace eight millimeter in the foreseeable future and instead adopted VHS-C format. Yet, several months later at the summer 1986 Consumer Electronics Show Olympus introduced an eight-millimeter camcorder manufactured by Matsushita, and Hitachi was reported to be making eight-millimeter machines for Minolta & Pentax. In terms of video quality, Video8 offers similar performance to Beta-II and VHS in their standard-play modes. In terms of audio, Video8