What is this horizontal band called on 8mm tape?
 

Some of my 8mm tapes have a horizontal bar around the lower third area. See attachments. I've never seen this on old VHS tapes. My workflow is TRV66 - ES15 - VC500 - Windows 10 - VirtualDub1911.

Hi, does the same pattern appear on the camera monitor? It looks possibly like a misalignment between the original recording and your playback deck. If so the playback deck needs to be tweaked mechanically to read just these tapes recorded on the same camera. To realign the playback deck to the tape is fiddly. Unless you have the skills and tools, best to leave it to someone experienced in it.

Here's a short video demonstrating a technician making the adjustments. https://youtu.be/Li0PPZmVK1I

Hope this helps.


PS: The written tracks on 8mm tape are finer than on VHS so mechanical alignment of tape and deck is more critical.

That's not a miss alignment problem, It's a tape damage in a form of a longitudinal line along the entire tape length or where the damage ends, probably a fold or a scorch, In most cases you should be able to see it on the tape not far from the tape edge, The camcorder DOC is trying to replicate the missing lines by repeating the last good scanned line.

Latrech34, you are correct! I looked at the physical tape and there is a line near the bottom. How does a line like this happen? From playing it in a bad deck? I have a version of the same video that I transferred 10 years ago where the line isn't there (workflow Sony 8mm standalone player -- Sony MiniDV camera -- WinDV -- Windows 7). Just wondering how it got there...

There are several reasons depends on where the gouge is, If the gouge is anywhere in the middle of the tape further from the edges like in your case it could be a broken plastic piece, a broken or loose spring riding along the tape damaging it, If it is right on the tape edges it could be an alignment problem from previous players/recorders. Ideally you would need to open the cassette shell and inspect it for any loose parts.