1970 digital PCM recording, Something, Steve Marcus, 13-bit/32kHz, sounds d@mn good!!!

No problem. I don't know much about 8mm formats, although I believe that Hi8, at least, was 16/48.

 

No, Hi8 added PCM, but it was a lo-res affair. From Wikipedia:

Hi8 PCM audio operated at a sampling rate of 32 kHz with 8-bit samples—higher fidelity than the monaural linear dubbing offered by VHS/S-VHS, but vastly inferior to VHS HiFi. PCM-capable Hi8 recorders could simultaneously record PCM stereo in addition to the legacy (analog AFM) stereo audio tracks.

Vanilla 8mm came with high-fidelity analog audio, something like Beta Hi-Fi. I always thought the decision to add low-res digital audio to Hi 8 was bizarre. But I guess at that time everything cool just had to be digital...

 

As per the article you referred to earlier, Denon /Nippon Columbia used pre-emphasis in their 14/47 LPCM recorder (DN-034R) for that.

 

Makes sense. That would raise the SNR.