VHS Tape Please Help!!

[Riley10]

Your are probably wondering why is there a topic about a vhs tape, those things are like ancient now. Well back when my son was a baby we video taped alot and got it put onto a vhs, I have watched it here and there and it always worked. But today I watched it and at about the twenty five minute mark the tape stops and just goes to a black and white snow screen. I have tried two different vhs players and the problem occurs on both so I think it is the tape itself. This is a very precious tape to me and something that can't be replaced if you anyone has some knowledge of how to fix this please help me out! Thanks.

 

[Deleted member 217926]

I don't think there is anything you can do but send the tape to a professional to see if they have the equipment to get past the bad spot on the tape. You should also look into transferring all your VHS tapes to DVD. The actual tape part of a VHS tape breaks down over time and all your tapes will eventually fail. Even a DVD will beak down over time and they also have a shelf life but it's easy to copy a DVD to your computer to save digitally as well.

 

[USAFRet]

If it happens at the same place on multiple machines, then yes, it is the tape. May be readable at a professional level ($$$) but maybe not. The metal oxide does indeed degrade and flake off.

If you have any other VHS tapes, convert them to digital now. A USB capture card would work.

 

[Riley10]

So if I convert the vhs to a dvd do you think I will be able to watch it again. Even if it takes maybe like 10min out of the tape that is fine as long as I get most of it to work on a dvd.

 

[USAFRet]

So if I convert the vhs to a dvd do you think I will be able to watch it again. Even if it takes maybe like 10min out of the tape that is fine as long as I get most of it to work on a dvd.

Get a USB capture device.
http/www.amazon.com/Hauppauge-610-USB-Live-Digitizer-Capture/dp/B0036VO2B or similar.

Play the whole tape and capture it to the hard drive. Dropouts and all. After that, you can watch directly on the PC, or potentially burn to DVD.

Do not play it any more times than absolutely necessary. The tape is already damaged. Playing it multiple times will only damage it more.

 

[thee_prisoner]

You should be able to visually see the tape damage if you scroll it by hand at the point where the tape stops(flip up the door on the cassette). Usually even a tape that is crinkled or has some metal oxide flakes off, you can usually still get some kind of image. So, you might be able to cut out the bad tape and splice it back together. I assume after the part of the bad section still works?

And, yes what the others said about transferring to DVD. Poor quality DVDs will degrade too, so buy a good quality write once disk.

Happy recording, the Prisoner...