1-There's only one clock display? How can it time up to 8 players?

The display only displays the present player and the previous player's times and a player number to show whose turn it is. This is actually a very sophisticated timer. For instance if you pause a game and adjust any settings in any of the modes and then return to the game Mode 0, the timer will automatically reset itself to the last player. If you save a game in progress and then a week later recall that game the G8 will automatically reposition itself to start with who ever was the last player and remember how much time that player had left for that turn before you paused the game and saved it. All warning options, delay settings and all players times (total time for all turns and turn times, etc.) can be saved in either memory A or B for later recall by pressing a single key once. There is a port for a remote start/stop key. Although we have not started making these you can use a 2 wire plug, such as found on the output end of any transformer (AC to DC 3v, 9v etc. ) and wire up to 8 momentary switches in parallel to this. This way all players would have there own start/stop key.

2-Is it always h:mm:ss format, or does it switch from showing # of mins to mm:ss or any other 'changes' in display?

No. The display only shows the characters of the actual time. For example 4 minutes and 35 seconds remaining for a player's total time is not displayed as 0:04:35 but only as 4:35. No unnecessary information is displayed. There are several options for displaying data that can be selected during a game without having to even pause your game, for instance if you are not interested in a total time for all your turns, just press the "-" key and the individual turn time is displayed in the large digits. At any time you can also select between displaying increasing or decreasing time by pressing the "CLOCK" key.

3-Is it considered a 'standard' clock by USCF (Chess) and NSA (Scrabble) guidelines?

Please refer to the reviews section.

4-I need a timer that counts down from 30 seconds and resets to 30 when pressing the button. I want to use it for a race game where each player has 30 seconds to complete a move. When the player is done, the timer needs to be easy to reset for the next player. It would also be nice if the last 5 seconds beeped as a warning.

Sure it does this. Set mode 1 for the number of players. Remember that even if you don't require a total time for all your turns Mode 2 must be set. In this case set mode 2 to nine hours and mode 4 to 30 seconds. Then set a warning of up to nine seconds in mode 7.

Save your settings in either memory A or B in Mode 8 and that's it. Never set another thing. Every time you play just recall the appropriate memory, go to mode 0 and keep pressing the big blue start/stop key for each player. Also since you are only interested in monitoring the 30 second turn time, press the "-" key when in mode 0 to display the 30 second count down in the large digits.

Also remember that even if a game has started, the G8 can be paused, and any of the settings of any mode can be adjusted.