Mixed LP and SP recording

[helios001]

Hello everyone,

I recently found a box with all of my family's old video8 tapes. I picked up a old sharp camcorder off of ebay and have been successfully converting tons of video. There were a few tapes that were having a lot of issues playing back, with the video appearing to drop out at a regular interval. I picked up an old junk sony tr416 camera off ebay and found that when I was looking through the view finder during these drop outs, the video was still visible, but was changing from SP to LP mode. I suspect there was a recording issue with the original camera that caused this. I've attached a video from the tr416 viewfinder.

Does anyone know if there is a way to force a tape to play at one recording speed even if it was recorded at two different speeds? Or if I'm completely wrong, what I can do to correct this?

Thanks for your time.

Troy

[oln]

There are at least some Hi8 camcorders and VCRs that only support SP (I know some samsung ones don't). Whether that will work or if they will only show garbage instead on those sections I don't know. I suppose it's possible that just a different model of camcorder may work as well, but hard to say.

[helios001]

That would make sense why it's showing video on the Sony vs the Sharp. Do you or any know if there's a way to correct the issue in the video clip I attached? If you watch the indicator at the top of the clip I posted, when it's displaying LP it's moving in slow motion, but resumes regular speed when it displays SP.

Thanks again.

[KarMa]

I would think your machine support both SP and LP, otherwise why have a built in LP graphic. My Sony Digital8 camera supports Hi8 SP/LP playback just fine. The tape might have absorbed moisture and so the tape is sticking to the head, or the tape spool has irregular resistance to spinning and causing the tape speed to slow down with each rotation causing the machine to register LP instead of SP. I'm just shooting in the dark.

You might consider simply playing the tape to completion a few times, to see if it fixes itself. Things get stuck when they sit around for 30 years.