A customer came in one day with video tapes containing home movies for conversion. These were the good tapes. I couldn’t help but cringe to hear him say he’d already thrown away the broken ones! He apparently just assumed a broken video tape was beyond repair.
While there’s no guarantee of restoring every second of video on a damaged tape, it rarely means a total loss. In fact, it’s actually possible much of the time to salvage the majority of memories on tapes in less-than-perfect condition.
Here are several common issues we see in the business of broken video tape repair and how much of the content we can likely save in each situation.
Deterioration of video or audio quality
It’s important to realize that magnetic tape is susceptible to deterioration over time. If the tape was stored in a cool, dry place with low humidity, there’s a good chance the video and audio will still be in excellent condition. Regardless, though, the quality can be compromised.
Video data on the tape proves to be the most vulnerable and often the first place where issues appear. Sometimes there is picture noise such as lines at the top, middle or bottom of the screen that can’t be fixed by adjusting the tracking on the VCR or cleaning the heads. Even worse, we have seen several tapes with only audio on the tape because the video has completely disappeared! This is really unfortunate and can affect as much as the entire tape. It can be worth trying to play the tape on multiple machines to eliminate any variables the VCR might cause. However, in these cases it is usually too late to save the contents.
Wrinkled magnetic tape
A section of wrinkled magnetic tape causes picture and sound distortion that is extremely difficult if not impossible to restore. Luckily, wrinkles are usually isolated and don’t cause much loss of the tape’s content.
There will be issues with picture and sound during playback of the damaged section. However, a VCR can often just play right through depending on the severity of the wrinkle without any repair necessary. But sometimes to play the tape it might be necessary to cut out the damaged section and piece the tape back together. Other times if there’s just a slight wrinkle during a section that’s worth attempting to salvage, even placing the tape between the pages of a heavy book for a few days can be worth a try.
Broken casing
A tape with broken or crushed plastic casing may not play without repair and should not be inserted in a VCR. The solution is to very carefully open up the tape and transfer the reels into new casing. Assuming there was no damage to the magnetic tape itself, it will usually play like new!
Tape off the reel
The magnetic tape of some older tapes can be prone to coming off the reel when rewound all the way. This is usually an easy fix. Unscrew the screws, turn the tape over, and carefully open it up. Then simply use a piece of invisible tape to stick the tape back on the reel. Carefully thread the tape back through, close everything back up, and the tape is likely restored.
Mold
Hopefully the tapes were stored in a dry place. If not, they may have become a breeding ground for mold to do some serious damage. Sometimes the mold only affects the casing and you can simply wipe it off. Other times there is damage to the magnetic tape, ranging anywhere from needing a cleaning to a total loss. Depending on the severity of the mold, it is usually worth the attempt to clean the tape. If the mold only has the appearance of a fine powder, it can help to run the tape through an old VCR no longer used to play tapes to clean it off. There are also other methods to try, so we can sometimes salvage even tapes with mold (though this is the type of damage most likely to cause a total loss).
The bottom line: a damaged tape doesn’t necessarily mean a destroyed tape, so bring in all your tapes as they are to preserve as much as possible before it’s too late.
