JLo owns me a clean up! (The tale of the dirty video tape)

The BBQ Pit
1

The movie was playing normally on my brother’s VCR when suddenly 3 white lines and then snow appeared, “no problem” he thought, just fast forward over the bad spot.

Then, only snow appeared, no picture at all, sound was more or less ok.

He tried the tape on the bedroom, same result after the same spot.

Then he came for my help. He said: this tape ruins VCR’s! I thought that was only a bad sector on the tape so I said: let me try that on my VCR. Same result! I checked for wrinkles or flakes in the tape: nothing! Tried playing other tapes: no other tape could be played properly after the cursed tape was played!

Fuck! 3 VCR’s could not play any movies now!

So I took the tape were it was rented and ask them to check the tape. I thought the VCR of the video store would suffer the same karmic fate but Murphy’s Law overcomes everything: the tape refused to do any damage at the store, making me look foolish. In any case, the local video store suggested a cleaner tape for the VCR’s.

JLo owns me a clean up tape! Fucking The Wedding Planner movie! I avoided that movie on the theaters and only because my sister in law rented it, we got into this mess.

Nevertheless, what could have caused that failure? Is there a way to tell if a tape will cause that kind of problem before playing it?

After 3 clean ups with the clean up tape, the image came back in all the VCR’s.

Oh well, glad we have dvd’s too, but if my relatives come back with a DVD of a JLo movie, telling me it doesn’t play in their player and want me to troubleshoot, I will demand payment in advance.

[sub]Well, I told you it was dirty![/sub]

2

It might have been crap from a previous renter’s machine on the tape that your VCRs were kind enough to remove before you got the tape returned. That’s the only thing I can think of.

3

Am I the only one who was expecting a totally different OP from the thread’s title?

4

Nope Aesiron. You are not the only one.

I’m kind of disappointed.

5

I’ve encountered something similar several times before, always on rental tapes. I don’t know what causes it, unfortunately. A video store employee referred to it as “magnetizing the heads”. When you went back to the store, you may have been too far along in the tape for it to do its dirty work to the store VCR.

Anyway, cleaning isn’t even necessary. Just play a known good tape, and it’ll clear itself up within half an hour.

6

Not the only one, but I guessed the OP was going to be something like this. Anything seemingly dirty rarely is. :slight_smile:

Hope you can get the VCRs fixed, GIGObuster!

7

I guess I should have put the [d&r] at the end! :slight_smile:

You guys have such dirty minds! :stuck_out_tongue:

In any case, It was true, I was thinking I would have to pony up for a new VCR when that happened, all of them are fixed now.

As soon recordable DVD’s are affordable, I will swear off video tape forever.

[sub]Come to think of it, my dirty tapes never damaged a VCR![/sub] :wink:

8

I’ve rented far too many dirty tapes that crapped up my VCR heads to believe it’s anything but a really dirty, nasty rental tape. I have to clean my VCR heads far more often if I’m renting tapes than if I’m just timeshifting with my own.

I’m glad your VCRs were all okay, though! Wow, I’d flip out, too, if it looked like I’d just crapped up THREE of mine!