[B 4204 T3]

Thanks for all of your help, and I'm sorry for the late reply. I've had a busy week.



From what I've been able to figure out, I don't know if they have sticky shef syndrome, since my Sony Betamax VCR is still working fine. As far as I know, the heads are still clean. All of the other Betamax tapes are playing without any problems. Sony must have had a design flaw which only affected this particular line of video tapes, which are called the Ultra High Grade tapes. I'm also perplexed about this problem, since I've owned Sony products for years, which have always been very good & reliable, and they have always received good reviews.



All I can figure out is that they must have come from a bad production run that the factory technicians either overlooked or weren't aware of.



I've always heard the term "high grade" tapes, but I've never quite understood what it meant. Were high grade tapes any better than other kinds of tapes, or what it just a fancy marketing term intended to stimulate sales? Did the have a different price than the other kinds of tapes? I'm just curious.



I also took two pictures of the kind of Sony Betamax video tapes that have the problem, in case any one recognises them. One of them is the box, and the other is the actual tape. The tape has some handwriting on the label that I can't read.



Thanks for your insight!