Deck ate my tape

W

weltonfilment

Active member
I hope this is the right place for this one...

So I was capturing a miniDV tape into a standalone JVC deck at my school and the thing was acting up (for some reason it wouldn't stay powered on). So I ejected the tape, and to my surprise the tape casing came out, but some of the magnetic tape was still looped inside the deck (thus, the "tape" came out of the tape).

Luckily the tech at the lab was able to get the tape back inside its casing and everything appears normal. However, I'm going to assume that the part that got caught up in the deck is a bit wrecked and probably not usable. I think the rest of the tape should be usable, though.

Should I take this into some kind of special data recovery place? I'm worried that if I play the tape again, it will jam at the point where it got stuck because of the damage already done to it.

I've never had this happen before, so any help is appreciated. Thanks.
 
i recently had a tape from a client who went to japan and shot footage of himself there, well the tape didnt just get caught, it was split in 2 , still havnet got it connected back together. :(
 
Well first off that JVC deck very badly needs cleaning - a dirty deck is the first reason it eats tapes.

As for your tape, it's not ruined and chances are that the data on there is fine and won't have any trouble playing back. That said the tape should be retired.
Take the tape and use any normal deck to copy the tape - it shoul work fine, even past the (lightly?) crinkled bit. Pay attention during playback and make sure all goes cleanly.
Once you have your copy, toss that crinkled tape and clean the deck you just used as that tape probabaly carried crap in from the dirty deck that ate it.

As to the broken tape issue. You can fix the tape VERY VERY carefully with a small peice of clear tape on the back (casing, "inside") side of the tape ONLY. Make sure that there is NO gap Same procedure as above, get the material copied - and if there's nothing important at the break point, I'd just wind past it (maybe even manually by hand). - Everything else on the tape is well recoverable. Once you have what you can/need copied form the tape, permanently throw out the tape and clean the deck.

The absoloutly most important thing is to not let the heads, which read the front face of the tape, hit the clear repair tape.


A video tape that is broken close to one of the ends (for example if a deck breaks it at the end of a rewind) can be repared with tape very carefully making sure that the connection is directly to the clear leader or reel and can not pass the heads.

- Mikko
 
well then do the carefull splice I described above, get the copy and toss the original.

Oh, and if possible, use someone else's deck. :evil:

- Mikko
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top