8mm video tapes not playing?
 

I had/have a Sony ccd-fx410 8mm camera for years. Have about 50 tapes dating back to the 80s/90s. Pulled the camera out and it’s no good - eject won’t go down. And no surprise virtually no repair shops. I bought a very nice ccd-trv87. But now only about half of my tapes play. The ones that don’t play snow screen with no sound. I did an analysis of the tapes and it seems like the ones that don’t play are all Sony Hi8 MP while the ones that play are Sony video 8.
Both these types played on the old ccd-fx410 but this new camera seems like an upgrade from that. Is there something I need to do to get those old tapes to play or am I just out of luck. The tape photo with a green tag plays and the one with the red tag does nonplay
Thanks

The recording may have used a special feature of the camcorder, not found (or working) no the new one. I don't know all the details of the Video8/Hi8 format, the non-standard aspects, but I do know this happened.

Or the tape was recorded misaligned.

Or the new camera isn't fully working either.

Those are really the 3 choices here.

It seems that camera is playing Video8, not Hi8, even though it's a Hi8 camera.

PM user NJRoadfan, ask for his input here. Several other members can probably help, too, though I don't recall offhand who those are.

Thanks for the reply.

If the camcorder is Hi8 it should playback Hi8 tapes unless it's defective, Even if the selection switch that detects Hi8 tapes is bad or has dirty contacts you should still get a video with clipped whites shown as white comets, Getting snow is very unusual. But do check to make sure it detects the Hi8 tapes by displaying Hi8 on the screen and report back.

The camcorder should immediately show the Hi-8 icon after loading a tape on the OSD or the LCD panel on the outside of the camcorder if working properly.

Generally the issue with tape playback is early 90s Sony Hi-8 tapes clogging the heads due to tape shedding. This doesn't appear to be the problem here as your Hi-8 tapes are from 1999 or later since they mention Digital 8 runtime on the shell. I haven't had playback problems with these tapes thus far. One remote possibility is that these tapes were actually recorded in Digital-8 (which the TRV87 won't play back), but that would be impossible if you were using an old camcorder.

Thank you for your reply. I’ll keep,trying

FWIW the ccd-fx410 is a Video8 camcorder, not Hi8. Was it used to record all the tapes? If so the tapes labeled Hi8 would have been recorded in Video8 mode and that might for some reason be confusing the TRV-87 (although the recording mode should be detected automatically on playback)?

The Digital8 suggestion above is a more likely scenario, unless the tapes are actually blank or were computer data backup tapes rather than video..

This shows how knowing the history of tapes is crucial, I had a customer with Hi8 tapes that were recorded by a family member and they were swearing that the tapes have been recorded before D8 was a thing, I put them in a D8 camcorder and got video, It turns out that someone used a batch of those Hi8 tapes to record over D8 recordings and since they all look the same they assumed they are all from the same era. I always suggest to buy a D8 camcorder with analog playback capability, it is a little bit expensive but you don't have to worry about identifying tapes, Now the OP is in the position where he has to buy an extra D8 camcorder for just making sure the tapes are not D8.

Thanks for the reply/info. Can a D8 camera play 8mm tapes? If so can you suggest a model? All the ones I’ve seen don’t accept an 8mm tape
Rich harding

Many, but not all, D8 camcorders can play Hi8 tape. Typically the basic models in a line cannot, but the top in a series usually can. Sony offered the widest selection. You need to read the specs/user guide of a model to verify it. The D8 camcorders were not very popular often amounting to a Video8 or Hi8 camera head and tape deck with DV electronics so finding a good one will take some effort.

The concept of giving consumers a single camcorder that could play their legacy Video8/Hi8 tapes was nice while moving into the higher quality potential of DV was nice, but only moderately successful and HDV then HD came along to kill it off.

The people I knew who wanted to upgrade from Video8/Hi8 moved to directly MiniDV for what was generally a better camera head.

I spoke to Sony about which model plays 8mm tapes and this is what they said

I see, I'm afraid that only analog camcorders can play 8mm tape

That website is deficient. It doesn't mention the Digital 8 TRV-110E (PAL), which plays Video 8 and High 8 tapes.

It also says:
I thought PAL was 25fps.

Here is another (probably more accurate) list:
https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/...PC#post2287570

There is also a long topic on VideoHelp that discusses Digital 8 cameras but I can't find it at the moment.

The entire purpose of that site seems to be links that direct you to buy stuff at eBay and Amazon, with thin content, some of which is wrong or misleading. The advice on where to get videos transferred truly sucks.