The 8mm Video Format (official name: Video8) is a type of video cassette recorder and video tape. It is mainly used with video cameras. 8mm cameras are popular because the small tape size means video cameras using this format can be much smaller than cameras using the VHS format.

The tapes are about the size of an audio casette, making the format popular for travel when space is at a premium. The tapes generally are either 60 minutes or 120 minutes long. The video quality is somewhat better than that of the VHS format. There is a high quality standard for this type of system, which is known as Video Hi8, as well as a new digital format, called Digital8.

One of the major drawbacks of the format is that the tapes are incompatible with VHS VCRs. Because the tape size is different than a standard VHS tape, it is not possible to make an adapter for the tapes that would fit in a VHS VCR. The VHS-C format is compatible with regular VCRs through an adapter, this is because the tape is the same size as a regular tape, it's merely in a more compact cassette design. However, cameras do come with audio video output cables which allow the video produced with the camera to either be shown on a television, or outputted to a VHS VCR and recorded onto a VHS tape. While some of the quality is lost in the transfer, because of the improved quality of the 8mm format a VHS copy's quality will still be very good.

The format is mainly used with video cameras, and today is the dominant format for video cameras. There were attempts to move the format over to the home VCR market as a replacement for VHS tapes. 8mm VCRs were manufactured, and even some 8mm tape versions of some movies were sold. However these attempts were generally not sucessful, and until the price of DVDs fell to reasonable levels, VHS remained the dominant format for home use.

The 8mm video format was standardized in 1984. In Sony intoduced the Handycam, one of the first cameras to record on to 8mm video tapes. This type of camera soon became more popular than the more bulky VHS camcorder.

8mm is still a popular format for video cameras. But Sony recently released a camcorder that incorporates a DVD recorder into the camera. This type of camera uses recordable mini DVD discs. Major advantages of this new format is that the quality of the recordings is very good, and the discs are compatible with regular DVD players. Once the price of this type of camcorder comes down, they may eventually replace 8mm as the main video camera format.