Sony EV-S3000 Hi8 speckled black video playback?
 

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

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.)

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.