How to unstick videotape?

December 15, 2007 11:43 AM

How do I prevent an old video tape from sticking?

I have some old beta tapes that I want to copy to DVD. I have a beta VCR to play them on, and a DVD recorder... no problems there.

The problem is that when I last tried this, the tape would not move in the cartridge. It somehow got stuck to itself. Attempts to get the tape to move (manually) only stretched the tape, making it useless.

Question: is there anything I can do to either prevent this sticking (high or low humidity, some kind of lubricant...) when I go to make the copy or to un-stick it when it does stick?

I only need to play the tape once, to copy it to DVD.

posted by mbarryf to Technology (1 answer total)

It depends a lot on whether the tape has reached the stage of oxide delamination, in which case, it's toast, nothing can save it, and trying to play it can badly gum up a player in a few seconds. Short of that, you can try careful Tape Baking.
posted by paulsc at 12:41 PM on December 15, 2007