Black streaks on 8mm tape?

[Emmet_Brown]

A few months ago I started transferring some Hi8 and standard 8mm tapes using a Sony Camcorder (CCD-TRV96 NTSC).
Everything went fine and after a while I started noticing some black streaks on my Hi8 recordings. The 8mm ones were fine.
Not knowing what those were exactly, I left the Hi8 tapes for later and I started transferring the 8mm ones.
After some more time, those black streaks started appearing on the standard 8mm recordings too.

I used a cleaning tape today (Sony V8-6CLHSP) and those streaks haven't yet disappeared. I recorded some new test footage too and it seemed to be plagued by the same issue.

Some people say that this could be worn out heads, but wouldn't that make the black streaks stay in the same area? Mine move around every frame.

I attached some pictures. I could provide a small sample video if needed.

[lordsmurf]

Heads may have gotten dirty. Bad, maybe. But more likely is dirty.

But don't just run to randomly clean it. Test that hypothesis. Visually inspect heads.

If you do need to clean it, do not use cotton swabs.

[Emmet_Brown]

What's the best way of cleaning the heads that you would recommend? I have read a lot of articles where people state that their method works best and all of that and I honestly do not know what is the best way to clean them safely and effectively. I also attached 2 photos of my camcorder's transport mechanism and 2 photos of the heads.

[servese43]

If you need to clean the heads, lordsmurf describes the procedure in this post:

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post72944