broken tape

[Steve Eisen]

Here is a place in the US.
https://www.sonymediaservices.com/

Steve Eisen
Eisen Video Productions
Board of Directors
Chicago Final Cut Pro Users Group

[Alan Smith]

If you feel adventurous, or if you are “handy,” you can repair it yourself with a screwdriver and piece of scotch tape. Take the tape apart by removing the screws and being very careful not to loose them and be aware of the spring that closes the tape cover. With the case open, GENTLY pull out enough tape to work with and place a small piece of scotch tape at the tear to bind the other side of the tape together. Make sure the scotch tape is not hanging over the edge of the tape. Once you have made your repair, put the tape back together. If you loose the spring or cant get it back in position, don’t worry about putting the door back in place. At this point you would want to make a dub of the tape before doing any other work with the tape. You will obviously loose the A/V around the splice, but you will have saved the tape.

This is not a task for the weak at heart, not for those who faint at the slightest sight of gore. But if you have a strong stomach, you can make the repair.

On a final note, make sure that you use QUALITY tape stock. I don’t know what stock you used for this shoot, but keep it with high quality stock. Pay the price for better quality tape of pay the price for failed tape.

Alan

Alan Smith
Media317

Check out my blog – https://media317.com

[Mark Suszko]

You can take the cassette shell apart relatively easily. Just watch out for the latches, pawls, and spring that keep the door of the tape shut. It takes a kind of three-fingereed salute to activate the hole where the latch release is, and lifting against the spring tension to get the door open. You can actually play a tape just fine without that door on the cassette at all, it’s just there to protect the tape from getting touched or dirty.

What I suggest is you buy a cheap blank tape cassette from the dollar store to practice on first, without pressure, and it will also give you spare replacement springs and screws if you lose some on the actual patient. One of the 2-dollar eyeglass repair kits with tiny screwdrivers, sold in drugstores will also be handy for this job.

You can tape the end of the magnetic tape to the hub, and gently play the tape off to another backup… or pull out the little friction plug in the hub that anchored the original clear leader tape, insert the edge of the magnetic tape, and reassemble. This will lose you playback of the first ten seconds on the magnetic portion of the tape, but many times the only thing on that part would be black in the first place, so your chances for full recovery are good. Once a few turns of tape are around the hub, you can even shuttle the tape, but you don’t want to fast-forward it very hard all the way to the end or it will snap the tape off the hub again. Most likely this tape is old and brittle, and the glue joint on the leader is the break point, or the leader tore from stress of hard-stop fast-forwarding.

[Tom Matthies]

Also, when you tape the two pieces of tape together, put the repair tape on the INSIDE of the tape you are repairing. That is, put the piece of “Scotch” tape on the side of the loop of tape that faces the cassette itself. Otherwise if the tape is on the other side, it will be on the side of the tape that the rotating heads will hit when the splice goes past the heads. Even though the repair tape is very thin, it’s still enough to possibly damage the heads as they pass over the splice. If the tape is on the side of the recorded tape that is away from the scanner, it’s less likely to damage the rotating heads when it goes by. Also trim the repair tape along the sides of the recorded tape you are repairing. Use a razor blade or a pair of sharp scissors to trim the repair tape so it doesn’t stick out past the edges of the tape you are repairing. Otherwise it’s likely to get hung up on one of the various guides within your playback machine, possibly causing another break in the tape or at least causing playback problems.
The most difficult part is getting the cassette shell back together. As stated above, if you have problems getting the two doors back on the cassette, just leave them off, capture the tape and put the tape away for safety. Put the tape in a zip-lock bag for storage.
Tom

[Antonio Atzei]

WOW!!!

And I though it never happened to anyone but me…. ha ha ha !
I did years ago something similar with musicassette altough I am tempted this time to look for some help and get it dubbed right away

Thank you all

Rds.
Antonio Atzei

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