VHS restoration service for sticky shedding tapes?

[RIcErFOR]

Looking for recommendations for VHS Restoration Services. In particular, I have a VHS that appears to have sticky shed syndrome.

[RobustReviews]

Might be worth letting us know where you are in the world bud, it's mostly US-centric on here but there's a few of us dotted around the globe.

[RIcErFOR]

Located in the US

[timtape]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIcErFOR

Looking for recommendations for VHS Restoration Services. In particular, I have a VHS that appears to have sticky shed syndrome.

SSS in VHS tapes is not very common. What are the symptoms? Once a SSS tape has been played in a machine it's important the machine's tape path is thoroughly cleaned of any muck transferred from the tape. Otherwise the machine may not play even good tapes well any more.

[RIcErFOR]

First few seconds play, but quickly slows until tape comes to a full stop and machine starts squealing. Had a local transfer service transfer several tapes, but this one they couldn't get to play. Supposedly they took the cassette apart, mechanism was fine and tape look fine also so they didn't know what the problem is. Tried playing on my VCR, got the above results. There is video on the tape, at least the first few seconds before it stops. I was able to rewind it, ejected and haven't tried anything else.

[latreche34]

I can give it a shot if you allow me, I have a VCR with open guts that I use for cleaning problematic tapes, But only one tape as I'm very busy, PM me.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIcErFOR

Looking for recommendations for VHS Restoration Services. In particular, I have a VHS that appears to have sticky shed syndrome.

What you want is not restoration (signal issues), but tape recovery (mold, flood, shedding, etc). For that, use Spec Bros, about $100-150 per tape. They have the equipment to recover tapes

Quote:

Originally Posted by timtape

SSS in VHS tapes is not very common. What are the symptoms? Once a SSS tape has been played in a machine it's important the machine's tape path is thoroughly cleaned of any muck transferred from the tape. Otherwise the machine may not play even good tapes well any more.

That's exactly it. Worse, actually. Shedding tapes can clogs heads, and damage them irreparably. Yes, playing a single bad tape can destroy a VCR. Again, eBay is the perfect proof of this, lots of "for parts" decks because some bonehead followed an equally stupid Youtube "guide" (mind vomit, "IT WORKED FOR ME!"). This has been an epidemic for years now, when it comes to mold/etc. I'm all for DIY, but this is the kind of stuff to screw around with, because bad things happen (health due to exposure of toxins, ruined expensive gear, etc).

Quote:

Originally Posted by latreche34

I can give it a shot if you allow me, I have a VCR with open guts that I use for cleaning problematic tapes, But only one tape as I'm very busy, PM me.

Honestly, I'd not even attempt this. No upside to this sort of project, when you don't have the gear needed to counteract shedding. Even I don't mess with this.

[keaton]

This is something you could try if you feel comfortable doing so. I am not saying this is the problem. But as said before, SSS is not very common with VHS. That has also been my experience with the hundreds of tapes I've experienced from all different parts of the US. Since I cannot 100% confirm from what I've read so far that the tape is sticky or sheddy, I wanted to at least suggest one other possibility that might be occurring if it turns out that the tape is not sticky or sheddy.

I once had a VHS tape I thought was sticky, because it would quickly squeal and stop playback. However, in this instance, it was the cassette shell that was causing the tape to stop playing. It was warped just enough to effect the movement of the tape reels. It wasn't obvious to me at first. I had disassembled the shell and swapped the tape reels into another shell, and the issue went away. The tape played fine. Sometimes it is not only the tape that can be effected by poor storage conditions. The cassette shell itself can have subtle changes in shape from extreme temperature or humidity changes over many years. With this cassette, when I put the empty bottom half of the shell on a flat surface, I noticed it had a bit of a wobble if I tapped it in the right place. I've noticed this on shells that also played fine, so it's not a silver bullet. But it was consistent with the fact that just changing the shell allowed the tape to play from start to finish.

Again, if you've never done this before, but you are game to try, you can take pictures before you take the reels out of the opened shell so you know how to thread things properly. There's also youtubers that have shown what the inside of a VHS shell looks like. Before you take the shell apart, make sure the window side is facing up. If there's a sticker on the spine of the shell, you may have to take a razor blade down the middle along the spine where the two shell halves meet so the shell comes apart easily. Go lightly, so you don't cause the blade to go inside the shell and potentially cut the video tape.

One more thought would be that if the tape is shedding noticeably, it should get the heads (especially the video drum) rather dirty rather quickly. If you clean the head before, then see a noticeable amount of dirt return to the head after playing the tape for a few seconds or so, then that should suggest that it is a strong shedder. Another symptom of SSS is a snowy picture that progressively gets worse and can eventually prevent any video signal from being displayed. As it is dangerous to let things progress and allow heads to get gummed up by a shedding tape, this is not necessarily the safest way to detect whether it's shedding. In your case, it doesn't seem to play long enough to get there, which is probably a good thing if it is in fact a strong shedder.

I've also had some experiences when the tape might have had a very subtle case of stickiness, but wasn't noticeably shedding. The tape tension was high, but it played without any visual issues like snowy picture. I had captured the tape and the audio was a bit off pitch at times (almost a chipmunk audio effect). After a rewind and forward in a machine, I guess it did enough to get the tape to playback without this change in audio pitch. It won't change the condition of the tape, but it may at least temporarily loosen things up a bit. In this case, it was probably a tape in very early stages of binder degrading. But it didn't cause loss of picture or snowy picture. The heads were fairly dirty when I was done, but some tapes are just rather "dirty", which I guess you could call a very minor case of shedding.

My only experience with noticeable shed that stopped video display very quickly was with a U-matic tape. I had to resort to baking. I've yet to need this for VHS. But I suppose if I had to, it would be the same temperatures and equipment as it would be for a U-matic. Here's a link to a post with an overview of what I did. http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vide...html#post80989 This is something that should only be attempted if you are comfortable doing so, and you have tried all other options.

I didn't see any mention of mold by the original poster, so I'm assuming that's not involved in this case. If it were, then that's another complicating factor which may negate most of what's being said here.

Best of luck to you!

[RIcErFOR]

Thank you for the guidance and offers to help. This isn't my tape, so I can't say for sure what conditions it was stored in. I don't see any indication of mistreatment, mold, water, etc. But, I suppose its possible that something could have been spilled on it, the exterior cleaned but the tape damaged.

Anyway, its not something I want to try to deal with myself (I like challenges, but have enough of those to deal with right now.) I will check out Spec Bros to see what they can do.