professional restoration

[ccm]

Hello,
I am in the process of converting some VHS tapes to DVD and have one tape that the VCR tried to eat and a portion of the tape has been damaged. I have tried to fast forward past the damaged spot and transfer only the good portion of the tape but it does not work. I can capture the audio but there is no video. I would appreciate a recommendation of a professional that might be able to salvage this tape.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

[Cornucopia]

As tape is a linear medium, you should be able to get past the bad part. You may not be able to use FF on your deck, however. Get out a pencil, poke the center hinge hole to release the tape's brakes, and manually spool past the bad part. Put that down for now.

Then, get a head cleaning tape (I prefer the wet system) and use it on your deck. In trying to play the bad video, you have most likely gunked up your playback tapeheads. The video won't be there/usable/good until you clean them. If you don't have a head cleaning tape or can't do the CottonSwab+Alcohol type of cleaning, a temporary fix is to get a tape that you know has good video--but which you don't mind being degraded a little--and put it in your deck and hit play, then watch in FF for a while, then watch in RW for a while. This will often dislodge any stuck magnetic or tape base particles (or other airborne contaminants). CAVEAT: This can pose the risk of further gunked up heads, so proceed with caution and at your own risk. I assume no responsibility, blah blah blah

Now, try the tape...

Scott

>>>Edit: Note that you want to play the tape ONLY from the resumation of the good section ONWARD.

[harley2ride]

Hello,
I am in the process of converting some VHS tapes to DVD and have one tape that the VCR tried to eat and a portion of the tape has been damaged. I have tried to fast forward past the damaged spot and transfer only the good portion of the tape but it does not work. I can capture the audio but there is no video. I would appreciate a recommendation of a professional that might be able to salvage this tape.

Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

In the past, I took apart a vhs tape, and used a COLD iron, with something firm under the tape, and a piece of cloth over the tape, and GENTLY press back and forth to decrease the wrinkles as much as possible. Then I put it back together, and fast forwarded and rewound the tape a few times (this also helps iron out the wrinkles). THIS IS NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART!. But it did work quite well. There was a slight hiccup at the spot where it was badly wrinkled, but it was tons better than before I did the repair. Just go slow and be very very careful.

[Cornucopia]

Good tip! Have used a few times before...

Scott

****You could actually use a HOT iron which would work better, but ONLY if you could regulate it to stay extremely low temp (120-140°F)! Not many allow that kind of precision. Please don't try this at home, folks.

[lordsmurf]

www.videointerchange.com can probably fix the bad portion of the tape.

Any number of people could capture the non-damaged portion of the signal. I would just spool the video past the bad section and go from there.

It also helps to have a good VCR, or several.

[Sillyname]

I spliced an old tape together once.(That my mother tore in two!)

Long time ago.

[FulciLives]

Try fast forwarding and rewinding the tape several times.

If the damaged part doesn't "catch" the constant fast forward (to the end) then rewind (to the start) will stretch the tape a bit and smooth out that crinkeled part.

Has worked for me before but expect major drop outs at that point but if it "works" it will at least play through it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Cornucopia]

Yes, repacking the tape on the spool is usually a very good idea. However, these days there are a number of VCRs that engage the video heads as soon as the tape is put into the deck (a "full head wrap")--even in FF or RW! If you have one of these decks, doing FF or RW will gunk up your heads. Just be careful...

Scott

[NightFire]

You can re-splice it quite easily. Once a client brought in a VHS and VHS-C tape with the inside tape wrapped around the cassette (the VCR ate it ). I just spliced it and converted it to DVD. Although your tape isn't that bad you could just cut it (exacto knife) and splice the two ends back together (don't use scotch tape).

[Cornucopia]

Unless you've got your own splicing block, demagnetized razorblades, true splicing tape and Q-tips, as well as something to stably hold the VHS front flap open, AND have had some practice making clean edits, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND that you steer clear of splicing it yourself.
Otherwise, you can do damage to the VCR heads.

Scott