My home movies were converted the digital…with mono sound?

I recently had a bunch of Hi8 and Video8 home movies transferred to MP4 format for preservation. These were shot between 1990 and 1998 with a Sony Handycam purchased new in 1990.

The picture quality is very good, however, the audio is in left sided mono? Why would the digital conversion output a natively stereo track into mono?

Is there anyway the digital files can be modified to get the stereo sound?

 

It sounds like they had a loose wire or they didn't know what they were doing. If their equipment only puts out mono audio, you would think they would arrange it so that the resulting files had sound from both channels (dual mono).

If you know the playback equipment outputs stereo, check the outputs. I once owned a stereo VCR which was recording and playing back through one channel only. I didn't notice until I recorded "All You Need Is Love" by The Beatles from a music video show, then played it back about two months later, to my dismay! Could it be that the playback equipment is doing the same to you?

I don't know how to convert the videos to produce sound from both channels short of re-coding them with a "mono" soundtrack or switching your playback device to playback in mono. Neither of which is really a good solution to the problem. If you had them transferred professionally, ask what happened to the audio and, politely, of course, see if you can get them re-done. Even if the sound is mono, as long as it comes through both speakers. Although, yes, a stereo soundtrack would be better! So there was never mono 8mm video? Sorry, I actually know little about the format!