Can't see how to play Hi8 tapes on this Sony dcr-trv340e pal camera

The Sony DCR-TRV130 is a D8 digital camcorder which is not compatible with Hi8 camcorders.
You need to have an Hi8 camcorder or DCR-TRV103 or similar camcorders that backward compatible with Hi8 camcorders.

It is my understanding that the camera won't playback those formats, timecode or not. There are VCR type units for the HI8 and other formats. They should be cheap on eBay now...

The DCR-TRV140 records and plays back Digital * tapes only.

DCR-TRV250E is a PAL version camera of the Digital8 format.
Yes you can use Hi8/Digital8 NTSC tapes. The camera will record a PAL digital picture on the tapes which means that you can play back the tapes in PAL and therefore you will be able to playback recorded tapes on UK televisions because they are also of the PAL format.

DCR TRV140E is a Digital8 camera
CCD TRV87E is a Hi8 camera,
(Hi8 is an analog format)
the tapes are the same size, wont help, the recording systems are not compatible
send them to a lab service ?maybe if there are only a few
or ebay a Hi8 camera and transcode them yourself

its not a solution, at least it clarifies the problem

Vista should be able to download this without any issues as it already includes the drivers. i was able to do this with my sony dcr-trv250 painlessly over the ieee-1394 (firewire) port using the DVD capturing bloat-ware (Ulead DVD creater) Toshiba had already installed for me. My toshiba satellite is running Vista Home Premium.

as regards analog hi8 playback, the product manual for the 250 says that this is NOT supported, i.e., it CANNOT play back analog hi8 tapes. Also, i wonder if PAL would be supported here in the US (assuming you're in the US, of course). I would expect only NTSC support. but it's a moot issue, since it doesn't play analog

I believe all Sony model DCR-TRV2XX and 3XX would play Hi 8 and ST8
Such as DCR-TRV265, DCR-TRV285 DCR-TRV340, DCR-TRV355
I hope that give you some ideas

I also have this problem, with a SONY DCR-TRV480E PAL. The problem is when I insert the cassette it reads on screen that "re-insert the cassette"

may be your camera not design to play the analog tape...there are some model that can playback a analog tape...i think your camera is for digital playback only.... check your user manual

Fidus, I am not sure where you are located but the camcorder you're trying to use now is a PAL version of Sony's 8mm camcorder. If the tapes you recorded earlier were recorded in D8 (digital 8) or 8mm/Hi8 format NTSC, they will not play correctly in this unit. The NTSC and PAL formats are different and not compatible. Hope this helps you. Joe Weibel customelectronics.org