Necessary to repair top flap of VHS clamshell for playback?
 

Thanks to lordsmurf and the wonderful advice given on this forum, I've been able to make great headway on my conversion of old VHS tapes to digital (specifically, MPEG2 format). Unfortunately, I've run into a VHS tape in which the top flap of the clamshell is broken (attached pic). I imagine that it was dropped at some point.

My question is thus: Does the top flap just serve as environmental protection for the film when the cassette is outside of the VCR? Or does it also protect it from the mechanism that sets the tape into position? Can I play this tape as is, or should I take out the film and put it into a new clamshell? If it helps, I'm using a JVC SR-VS30.

Thanks in advance for the help!

Yes, repair it.

And by "repair", I mean replace the outer clamshell entirely, from another tape. Preferably a new tape, or a sacrificial retail tape., not another tapes. (And no, personally, I never consider TV recordings as sacrificial. Old TV recordings can be goldmines for the content, the commercials, the newscasts, etc.)

Many people would insist "it's fine", but I've seen too many tapes snag on transport parts during eject. You take the risk of the tape being fine when inserted, for the playback/capture, but slightly destroyed when ejected.

Thanks for the advice ls. Fortunately I had a few unused/sealed cassettes lying around, definitely glad I saved them! Replacing the clamshell wasn't as big a chore as I imagined it to be, and the capture went very smoothly, with no tape hangups during ejection.

I hear you about the old TV recordings and commercials, it's certainly been one of the more amusing aspects of this video capture. Brings back lots of childhood memories :-)