[B 4204 T3]

The results are in!



Yesterday, I had some time to make a few brief test recordings on one of these bad Sony Betamax video tapes, which was blank at the end. I used both tape speeds & both video modes, standard & Super Beta. Unfortunately, the new recordings were just as bad as the rest of the tapes just like it. I tried adjusting the tracking knob, but it didn't do any good. The video quality was so poor that it barely showed up on my TV, but the audio was still decent, just like the rest of the Sony Dynamicron Ultra High Grade tapes I have. Now, I don't know what to do with these tapes or if there's any hope for them. I've heard about the "sticky shed syndrome" issue, but I'm not really knowledgeable about it, and I've never tried to repair a tape with this problem.



Since we're discussing the tape speeds, I'm curious about why Sony discontinued the Beta I speed & made all of their customers settle for the two slower speeds on their VCRs. It seems to me like it wouldn't have done any harm to keep the Beta I speed, and it would have given everyone better picture quality, which is what people wanted. Perhaps if it was still available on all of the Betamax VCRs, then things could have been different in the competition between Sony & JVC for which tape format would win; who knows.