As I mentioned earlier, I’m working on a big project to put all my old home video tapes on DVD. I have, at last count, 162 tapes to watch and catalog. On the 145th tape, my trusty old Magnavox VCR I’ve had since high school grabbed a tape, shredded a portion of it, wouldn’t eject, and died. Ok, that’s alright. I have my parent’s nice VCR, which I intended to use for capturing the tapes since it was better anyway, sitting on my desk. Last night, when trying to insert the 157th tape, VCR #2 goes beserk, getting caught in a loop consisting of load tape, fast forward, rewind, eject halfway, repeat. Taking it apart I saw no obvious failures (broken springs, slipped belts, etc.)
I still have to capture all of these tapes (probably 75% of which are VHS). So, it’s the almost the year 2006, and I have to buy another VCR… I never thought I’d do that again. Good news is they’re way cheaper than they used to be.
You should almost just rent one or something. Or better yet, find someone who has one that you could borrow for a week. That is a stark statement that you have to actually buy a VCR… Sounds like my dad trying to find a camcorder that can play those little tapes just for the purpose of feeding them into a PC.
An alternate could be to scrounge around Bradley and see what the AV departments might have. You never know what they’ve got in their dusty old cabinets…