Sony DCR-VTR310 camcorder: need to tape longer than 1 hour.

I need to tape a fitness based class to submit for final review. The class is 1 hour 15 minutes. So far the 8mm tapes won't tape longer than 1:01 hours. I read that you can slow the recording speed to "sp" mode so that you can tape more/per tape.

My husband and I have looked in the manual and the menu's but no luck. Does anyone have any advice for getting my digital camera to tape longer than 1 hour. PS. We have used several different kinds of 8mm tapes. It appears that it always wants to tape in digital/LP mode.

Thanks for any help you can provide.
Elizabeth and Jack
:confused:

I need to tape a fitness based class to submit for final review. The class is 1 hour 15 minutes. So far the 8mm tapes won't tape longer than 1:01 hours. I read that you can slow the recording speed to "sp" mode so that you can tape more/per tape.

My husband and I have looked in the manual and the menu's but no luck. Does anyone have any advice for getting my digital camera to tape longer than 1 hour. PS. We have used several different kinds of 8mm tapes. It appears that it always wants to tape in digital/LP mode.
If you had tried just a little bit of searhing, you would have found out that:

* You got SP and LP wrong. SP is "standard play", LP is "long play".
* There are two ways to get a longer recording time: either to slow down the tape speed (that is, switching to LP recording mode) or to use longer tape (using so-called LP tapes).
* Not all camcorders have LP recording mode.
* There are no LP tapes for Digital8 per Wikipedia. However, again per Wikipedia, "160 meter 8mm data cassettes have been successfully used to give 50% more recording time than the standard 112 meter Hi8 cassettes." Translation: you can use cassettes intended for computer data backup in your camcorder, achieving 60 * (160/112) == 85 mins of recording time.

Hmm, interesting, I did not know that computer backup tape cartridges have the same physical format as consumer Digital8/Hi8/Video8 cassettes.

It is also interesting that Digital8 uses the same DV codec as MiniDV-based camcorders. Why would Sony et al have released a new physical format for DV if Digital8 worked perfectly well? The recording time in SP mode is the same 60 minutes, the difference in cassette size seems insignificant. Beats me.

---
Michael, Canon Elura User Pages (http://www.elurauser.com)

Jockey.

Thanks. I did actually attempt to research this topic, but I have to admit I asked others for advice before searching online,...hence the mistaken idea about Sp and LP...actually I was told that by a manager at Radio Shack. He told me, "SP=Slow mode and LP...default.."? I should know better :rolleyes:

Anyway, I will forward this info to my husband. Again, thanks very much for looking into for me and helping a very inexperienced camcorder owner :D

PS. I did find info on Wik. too, but am very non-techno so of course I continued to think...geez, this has to be easier to figure out!

Thanks, thanks thanks :)