Any way to get a slow rewind/fast forward?

[justin81]

I have a couple tapes (terrible mid-90s era T-160 Sonys, ugh!) that need a repack. Unfortunately, all of my machines have that crappy feature which extremely fast winds the tape and then slows when it detects the beginning/end is near. I've read/heard that this is not going to produce a good repack compared to VCRs of yore that wind at a continuous speed. Should I just take a gamble on another VCR on Ebay/Craigslist and hope I get a slow winder, or is there a way to "trick" my existing machines to not engage the high speed winding?

Would playing the tape and engaging fast forward/rewind (onscreen) do the trick?

Thanks in advance.

[sanlyn]

The rewind speed is not a factor, as long as it's not paused. You can always try a slower player (as long as it's in decent shape, but finding and old one could be like playing a lottery).

Never play old tape fast-forward. Period.