Strange problem w/ 8mm tapes

[anitract]

I have a batch of 8mm tapes recorded on a Canon from 1995 or so to around 2003. Sometime around 1999 my family discovered while viewing a tape that we just filmed that the audio wasn't coming though normally...when you hit play, the sound would start at normal volume and then gradually (but quickly) fade away. It becomes so soft that you have to put the TV's volume to max just to *faintly* hear it.

At the time, we thought that the camcorder's audio out jack was just burnt out. So we continued to use the camera...

In 2003, we bought a new 8mm camera and playing those tapes did the exact same thing...the audio would fade away into nothing!

We then tried to play some older 8mm tapes that had been recorded with the canon camcorder BEFORE we had started having audio problems. Lo and behold, the audio was perfect! Sound was perfect, didn't drop out or anything.

So it seems like something happened to the camcorder that caused it to mess up the audio on tapes from a certain point in time onward...

Recently, we found an old Canon on eBay that was almost the same model as ours. When we tested the "messed up" tapes on this replacement the sound would play! It doesn't perfectly (and actually the audio kind of drops out very very briefly every so often), but its coming through at least.

Sooooo....what happened? And why will the replacement canon we bought play the audio?

More importantly, is there something out there that might fully restore the audio (since it still drops briefly)?

[thecoalman]

More importantly, is there something out there that might fully restore the audio (since it still drops briefly)?

Most editors allow you to adjust the volume. If you wanted too you could rip the audio out of the capture and play around with it in a audio editor. Look in the tools section.