Advice: Is this tape beyond saving?

[discmeister]

Hi all,

Picked up a very rare old VHS tape on that auction site the other day. It was advertised as being 'in very good condition for its age' - which means 37 years.

Anyway, I've tried it in both my JVC HR-S7955 and a Panasonic FS200 with very limited success. I've attached two sample clips in AVI DV format here so you can get the idea of the sort of picture interference I'm encountering. Lurgan sample 1 is among the better stretches of footage; Sample 2 shows how much of it is just pure noise (although the audio plays throughout).

Is this just the physical tape, do you think? Or would there be any merit in swapping cassette housings? There's no obvious damage that I can see but the tape does smell pretty musty...

All advice/tips gratefully received - before I hit the 'return item' button on e&&y...

Discy

[sanlyn]

Return it. I had a bad tape myself that was rated "like new". I'd hate to see what "used" would be like.
If lossy DV is the best you can get with analog tape, you may as well return everything. It's like trying to work with damaged goods from step one.

[discmeister]

Suspected as much. Just wanted someone here to tell me as much, really. It is the only time I've seen this tape in 30 years of watching motorsport, so I thought it might be worth saving if there was any chance...

[latreche34]

Did you try viewing the tape straight to TV, Some capture devices and software exhibit similar problems.

[hodgey]

Looks like there is a ton of tape dropouts in the first recording. Passing the signal through a panasonic dmr-es10 or similar with the VCR TBC disabled can help straighten up the dropouts where the player has compensated and copied the previous line making them look a little better.

It's so bad in this case though that I don't know if it's worth bothering, it's going to look pretty crappy in any case. Something seems to have seriously damaged the tape.

[discmeister]

Thanks for those replies. What could have damaged the tape to this extent? Doesn't even look like damp, where you get 'sticky' points at regular intervals.

-- merged --

In the end I started a return on the tape but then suggested to the vendor that if he gave me a part-refund, I could buy it for a much-reduced amount. So that's what I did.

Now, has anyone here in the UK used a restoration service - something with a Tapechek or somesuch - to restore a VHS tape and would care to recommend it?

[pcourtney]

did you find a UK company to restore the rally tape - if so could you share - thx

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by discmeister

very good condition for its age' - which means 37 years.

Always a weasel term/phrase. This means condition is lousy.

Quote:

picture interference
Is this just the physical tape, do you think?

Tape itself, and appears very much like what happens when the tape is (or previously was) sticky, sticking to itself, has damaged itself. Likely no fix, definitely no easy fix.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pcourtney

did you find a UK company to restore the rally tape - if so could you share - thx

Do you have that exact issue?