Concur, either camera or misrecorded tapes.
First step in process of elimination is to procure another camera.
Video8/Hi8 is actually slightly susceptible to dirty heads, but the "cleaning" method is to FF/REW a good tape multiple times. Merely wiping it with non-cotton swabs, like with VHS decks, is not adequate. (Note that people over-suggest cleaning VHS heads, and often with bad methods, so the VHS decks get ruined.)
From an old VH post:
Quote:
While misaligned heads can cause that, an equal culprit is simply dirty heads. Video8/Hi8 was designed for an all automatic tracking system; although it's analogue, there is no dedicated linear control track like in VHS. Tracking is done by recorded tones on the helical video itself: the capstan motor adjusts such that there is maximum output of such tones then it's deemed tracking is optimum. When one head gets clogged (by a dirty tape or not), often video is still recognizable because the VTR will have line or field storage to repeat previous line, except for the beginning (or ends) of a field which will show noise. But, since audio is also picked up by the same heads for video, when one is clogged this can't be corrected on playback so a motorboating sound is produced.
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Most transfer services, even more advanced ones such as ours, will not "break" (misalign) Video8/Hi8/Digital8 cameras/decks to match the tapes. We will do that only for VHS and S-VHS, because it is "easier" (relative term, I assure you!). The Video8/Hi8 tracking data is actually recorded to the tape, unlike VHS-based, and you can really screw up the deck irreparably quite easily without scopes/etc to the fine adjustment tolerances. Those tiny formats are far more tedious to align.
There may be some specialty restoration services for this exact issue, but it will not be cheap.
If you want to send out a tape, for a 2nd opinion, PM me.