Hi8 120 tapes abruptly stop?

[CyrusL]

Hi Everyone,

I am in charge of digitizing some old family Hi8 tapes and I have run into an issue.

I purchased a Sony DCR-TRV460 as my playback device and I am able to get the tapes playing. However, they abruptly stop playback towards the beginning of the tape (minute 5 and minute 16 for both tapes so far). If I fast forward beyond the sticking point and initiate playback again, I still get no audio/video.

To be clear, I don't think the tape is physically sticking. I still hear it moving after the audio/video playback ends. The behavior is as though there is no footage on the latter 95% of the tape when I know that isn't the case. There isn't a degradation of the video quality at any point, it just simply cuts out.

Is this a common issue? Are there any tips for fixing it?

Thanks!

[turk690]

It's likely the tapes are either shedding bits (may or may not be critical) or are dirty or both. This is especially true of tapes that were not specifically sealed and stored in a dust-free environment for years. The heads get gummed up so no signal is picked.
What I normally do first is FF and REW each tape at least ten times to redistribute tension & (hopefully) not clog up the heads. A separate FF/REW machine would be ideal, but tough finding one now for 8mm tapes. Get a cleaning tape & use as directed to un-clog heads. There is a manual way of cleaning but the camcorder heads are so fragile they just might get broken if you are not sure how to proceed with it. Play the newly-rewound tape. Chances are it will clog the heads again, so take tape out & repeat the cleaning tape excercise. Continue this way until the tape plays through, then REW & FF it a few more times. Play again; chances are, if it is a good tape, and your 460 is half decent, it will play completely, enough to capture.
All the above applies to tapes competently recorded in SP. If they were recorded in LP, there is a chance that they will either not be played or mistrack badly such that audio is muted and/or noisy bands appear on top and/or bottom of picture. Even worse are tapes that were recorded at different portions in SP and LP, and gaps are present between video segments. They can be a nightmare to capture.