Small video cassettes explained. 

Three boys, count them! Yes I think I have seen the Ampex Quad chap. I compared the micromv tape to the largest video cassette I support, also of course they are both Sony and digital formats so there's a nice comparison. I have a D1 tape here but alas no machine yet. This evening I have my head in a broken DVCPRO deck, it seems to have a cassette carriage fault. I feel another RU-vid video coming on...

@@video99couk I have five professional edit recorders, DVCAM, DVCPRO 50, Betacam SP, Digital Betacam and U-Matic SP. In the last few weeks four of them have developed faults. with two of them I know what the problem is, and can fix it myself when I find time, but the Betacams will have to go in to be serviced. I paid £25 each for them, so I don't mind paying to have them fixed, but I don't drive, and they're really too heavy to move by bus. I'll have to try to find somebody who can take them by car for me. The SP is a BTS branded version of the Sony BVU75-P and very heavy. I also have a Sony BVX 10P component colour corrector which has a minor problem, but I think I can fix that myself. No problems for ages, then everything goes wrong at the same time. I've been moving things around a lot recently, up and down lots of steps, which probably hasn't helped.

@@srfurley *BVW-75P

The blades are industrial razor blade tools, made in USA. Favoured by drug dealers for cutting their wares I believe! Do an eBay search for Single Edge Industrial Blades for Zippy Type Scraper 100 Pieces. The 8mm splicing block was really hard to get. I found a company in USA who did them but wouldn't ship to UK, so had a friend send it to me. It was probably this one: www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0041BKUJ0/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all Dental explorer is the name of the tool I use for applying the splicing tape, mine is also made in USA but they are variously available on eBay.

It's fiddly, especially with Maxell branded tapes. But some players don't mind if you don't have the lock mechanism and spring in there, so it may not be worth the trouble. If playing back on a camcorder, then it's not necessary. However some bigger 8mm decks won't accept a tape with this spring missing.

video99.co.uk Yeah, but the gate keeps falling over. I’m afraid when I put the tape into a player or camcorder, it will fall open again and expose all of the tape.

@@MrJonguy45 It should be OK in a camcorder. However something like an EV-S9000E deck will probably not take the tape in. When taking out of a camcorder, you may have to "jiggle" the tape a little to get the front to close fully before extracting it.

CVC tape might work on an open reel recorder, I've never tried it and it would be a bit of a faff to set up. I do now have a reel of audio splicing tape but I think it's still too thick to run through a machine. Next time I splice one, I will try it.

Yes. The problem is either one of two things. Either you recorded it in a camcorder where the head was off track, which will cause problems playing it in other players. Or you simply recorded it in a camcorder that does not work well with other players. It is actually a pretty common thing. Turns out that not all players play at the same speeds, and will actually cause errors when playing back on other players. It is usually not a problem with SP recording, but the problems usually happen when you record a5t other speeds. For example, my brother recorded about 10 tapes with an old RCA VHS-C camcorder. All the recordings in SP play perfect on every other player, but in between recordings he would change settings and recording speeds. So one tape may start out with a perfect SP recording, then the next video on the same exact tape will be in black and white, then the next video with just flicker, then the next video he shot will be back to perfect. There will be four or five recordings on each tape, and some will play perfect, and some will not. The only way to get all of them to play perfect is in the same model RCA camcorder. I have yet to find a VCR or camcorder they will play correctly in. But again, I know what the problem is, he simply changed settings and recording speeds in between recordings, and camcorders and VCRs are known not to play well together. It is actually no different with VCR recordings, because depending on the recording speed, tapes will not play well in other VCRs. As I said, some of his recordings are in black and white as well, and oddly the speed they were recorded in conflicts so much with the VCR I have, that the TV reports it as being a PAL recording, even though it is an NTSC tape and was recorded with an NTSC camcorder. I am guessing it is a speed problem. The head could've been off track, but the speed is more likely. If the recordings are sharp and play well, just colorize them. You can find programs that colorize black and white videos.

It's about SMALL cassettes, not large ones. The clue is in the title.