Video8 tapes dropout after 15 minutes of playback?
 

I've been doing a job of 40-50 8mm tapes, and of course, the older Video8 tapes are giving the most trouble. So far, I've had a few that I cannot get a complete one-shot transfer from. They typically play fine at the beginning, then 15-30 minutes in, the video begins to deteriorate starting with the top lines and moving down until the whole frame is blue (on Digital8 camcorder playback) or static (on Video8 deck). These are early 90s Sony Video8. I will check the exact model when I have them in front of me again, but I think they are all MP. I have played them on two different Sony DCR-TRV models and one EV-A80 deck. The original camcorder they were created on is defunct. I have tried the following strategies to no avail:

- fresh winds of the tape using secondary camcorders and an 8mm rewinder
- quick baking sessions of the tape (about 8 hours at 125F in a dehydrator)
- cleaning the heads of the playback device

Has anyone had successful techniques for transferring these sorts of problematic tapes? I will say that I have not tried taking the tape out once dropout commences, cleaning the heads, and playing from that point until it drops again; because I do not want several partial transfers that then have to be stitched (if that situation can be avoided).

Maybe it was a recording issue. I would clean the tape path when it happens to check if it solves the problem.

See this thread: http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...uring-hi8.html

TL;DR, Sony 8mm tapes from the early 90s have problems and didn't age well.