I stored my recorded hi-8 tapes of my family's adventures over the years (over two dozen) at my climate-controlled office in a file cabinet not near any electronics or magnets. The tapings were made from 6-12 years ago. I was in the process of transferring the tapes to my PC for DVD burning, but discovered upon playback that all the tapes displayed black static-like lines along the right and left edges of the scenes. These lines continually shift along the top and bottom edges, and appear to be on the entire tape. Is this moisture damage of some sort? The problem is not with the camcorder, since I did some taping subsequent to discovering the problem, and upon replaying the tape, the black lines are not present. My only consolation is that I had previously transferred the video from the hi-8 tapes to VHS cassettes, although I did all the transferring at the EP speed. I have since transferred all the VHS tapes to DVDs, so I now have a more longer lasting media. I would appreciate any ideas as to what caused the problem, and if these hi-8 tapes can be restored. Thanks, Gardener
Hi Is it that your transfer process it seeing the "full" picture on the tape. Whenever I transferd Tape (VHS to DVD Recorder) and then look at the recording on the PC I have all sorts of rubbish all around the edge of the picture but when it is played back onto a TV you can no longer see the rubbish as the TV "crops" the picture. If you check your VHS copies against the hi-8 tapes are the lines covering up detail that is on the VHS tapes. Just a possible......
Hotdog59, The static-like lines go into the scenes, and are not outside of it, so there is no way that these disruptions would be cropped out if the video is transferred to a DVD and viewed on a TV. I was wondering if anyone knows how to dry out a tape, because I still suspect the problem is moisture damage (whether reversible or not). I put one damaged tape in an airtight box with silica drying media a few days ago to test my theory. I will view the tape in a few more days and see if there are any improvements to the image. If that does not work, I will try putting the tape in an oven set at 150 degrees or so for an hour or so, and see what happens. Gardener
