8mm camcorders often have many of the best features found in higher priced Hi-8 units, including image stabilization, strong optical and digital zooms and innovative special effects. Regular 8mm tapes are the exact size and shape as their HI8 counterparts, but record video at a lower resolution level, and therefore, are less expensive than camcorders which product better image quality. 8mm can record for up to 2 hours and has a resolution of 270 lines.

Hi-8 and regular 8MM tapes cannot be put into a standard VHS video recorder, a common misconception. There are no adapters to achieve this. They must be transferred to VHS in order to be viewed on a regular VCR.