Either sections of my video tape are missing or my VCR keeps skipping bits?

[contactadam2002]

I have programs going missing from my home made VHS tapes (which had the tabs removed after they were filled up) they were recorded on and in some cases watched only months before I discovered they were missing (some tapes are several years old others only a couple of years, they can be either SP, LP or in many cases both and none were recorded on the VCR I'm useing to play them back on) I'm playing them back on a much newer Extended play VCR from a different brand, so is it possible that it's skipping parts of the tape or have sections of the actual tape perhaps gone missing? We're talking about roughly 15 of the 28 tapes that I have that this has possibly happened to?

[jagabo]

What do you mean by missing? A VCR simply moves the tape past a spinning head at a more-or-less constant rate. It's possible that an old tape will just display garbage if the signal on the tape is unreadable, or if the head is misaligned, but whole sections can't be missing unless someone cut and spliced the tapes.

[contactadam2002]

Well thats probably good to know, no doubt it'd stick out like sore thumb if it had been cut out and reattached just as it would if it were recorded over, neither of which appear to have happened. But they are still missing none the less and this is a serious mystery.

[johns0]

Play a tape with parts missing and watch all the way through,if its a 2 hour tape and it plays 2 hours of constant video then there's nothing missing,try and get another vcr and watch the tapes again,if parts are missing and doesnt look cut or no bad spots then either someone has messed with the tapes or your recollection is off.