Substitute EIAJ tape stock?
 

I have a handful of 1/2" open reel machines ranging from the Sony CV-2600 through the AV-8650 and a Panasonic NV-3130 just for variety.

I also have several old tapes which date as far back as 1972, almost all of which exhibit sticky-shed syndrome and require baking for playback. None of the tapes are what I would consider "throwaway" in value and I'd really rather not have to bake one every time I want to do even rudimentary tests on one of the units.

Are there any other 1/2" formats I can "borrow" tape stock from, ideally that I could record to and play back from?

The obvious choice would be VHS since I have a bunch of it around and it's less than half the age of the EIAJ stock, but it seems thinner. I'm wondering about Betamax or even baseline Betacam tape.

Anyone have any experience in this realm?

I did use some VHS tape stock on an EIAJ deck once. It will work, but will stretch after a few plays and have to be re-recorded.... It's not exactly ideal.

I also tried some newer 1/2" computer tape it worked, but I'm glad I only did a single short 2 minute test recording and only one playback...After doing that I asked Richard Dehil (Lab guy of the website Labguys world) and he told me not to use that tape. It has strong backing, but it's highly abrasive and will grind the heads down to nothing after a while. He also said occasionally they would use that tape for a while if they needed to polish a chipped head.


There's probably no reliable solution out there for record it once play it back care free dozzens of times anymore. But if you do find something I'd like to know too.

Maybe look for Beta L-500 tapes? Since they are a shorter length, maybe they were made with thicker tape.

Out of curiosity, what is on these EIAJ tapes? If you cant get the players to work, I know of a few conversion services that still do EIAJ, one who regularly posts on Youtube.

Might find someone in this group to help U
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/

Some of the tapes contain college news programs; they're physically in the best condition but also the ones I don't want damaged. The others are a mix of high school basketball games and someone's vacation videos.

I have an AV-3650 that only needed belts and lubrication which I restored in 2012. I've used that to make successful transfers of the important stuff. Now my interest centers around more involved restoration work and doing some interchange experiments.