VHS tape reversed and flipped over, can the dull side damage heads?

[agisthos]

I came across a tape that has neatly folded over at halfway through a 180 min recording. So the 2nd half, which is perfectly wound, is flipped over.

So I can pull the entire tape out from that point, flip it over and then wind that half back on via it's correct side.
Or.... its possible dubbing has occurred onto this reversed side...

I am willing to test capturing from this reverse side to see if this is the case. But can running a tape reversed like this damage your playback head? The playback side of the tape (outwards) is shiny while the reverse side is dull. If there is even any chance the dull side can damage my JVC head I will not attempt it.

Anyway it's an interesting problem to come across.

[jjeff]

I wouldn't try it without flipping the tape at the appropriate place. Note there must also be a place where the tape flips back, probably shortly after it flips in the first place? Yes the not shinny side would cause more wear on the spinning heads but for briefly it should be OK but I'd be more worried about the crinkly part where the tape flips and then flips back, which could cause the fragile video/audio HiFi heads to break but I believe video heads are stronger than they were originally when I broke a head with a crinkled tape.
I'm guessing the original recording was done on the correct side of the tape but I guess it's possible it was already flipped before the recording or flipped during the recording and could have been recorded on the wrong side of the tape, not sure if that would even work but if that the case, whatever is on the tape may be good for good.

[agisthos]

I have already opened the tape and chopped out the crinkly part.
The real question is, do I join the shiny side to the dull side and then continue playing it to see what is on the dull side?

The entire rest of the tape is perfectly wound and there does not seem to be any other flips that would reverse it back to normal.

So its convenient right now to try playing that dull side, before pulling 90 mins of tape out and hand winding it back in the correct way.

[lordsmurf]

Don't try that.

[robjv1]

This happened to me once back in the 1990s with a spliced tape someone had flipped upside down halfway through. Recorded an entire movie on the dull side -- ended up being nothing more than the audio (mostly warbly) that carried over though and very strange video noise. It was the strange video noise the prompted me to take a look at the tape itself 20 years later and realize it had been flipped since I'd never seen video noise quite like that before.

[dellsam34]

There is no reason to try the tape in the upside down, Even if it is recorded that way it would not produce a good image anyway, So just fix the tape and play it back normally regardless if there is a useful video in it or not.