Sony EV-S3000 Hi8 speckled black video playback?

[DJones]

First post here.

I'm trying to digitize personal home video, but am having problems with this Sony EV-S3000. It records to tape without problem. It will also pass through video from line in without problem. This deck has been in the family since it was new. Also, I bought a second machine on eBay.

Both PSUs recapped, restoring normal operations. The eBay unit has a bad VFD transformer.
The eBay unit also ejects tapes, of which I have not been able to figure out why.

I've swapped several parts between the two, but no luck.

Any suggestions? Here is a link to a sample video:

YouTube Video

[dpalomaki]

How did you confirm that it records to tape without problem?

What sort of scene should we have seen in the image of the clip you posted? (It looked a bit like black burst without proper sync.)

[DJones]

I used a test signal generator to create a 30 minute tape of color bars. I verified it on a Sony CCD-TR500 camcorder. The scene that I uploaded should be prime time TV from a local affiliate in the mid 90s, also verified.