8mm Camcorder
If your 8mm camcorder has developed a snowy-looking picture, your video heads might be dirty. Video heads get dirty or clogged when you do a lot of outdoor shooting, when you've used several different 8mm tapes or when you put an older tape into the camcorder. Dust particles can gather on the video head or stick to the tape and then transfer to the camcorder head. If you don't own an 8mm cleaning cassette, you can do the job with chamois cleaning swabs and the proper head-cleaning fluid.
Instructions
Manually Cleaning 8mm Video Heads
1. Open your Video8, Hi8 or Digital 8 camcorder using the eject button. Using the flashlight, locate the video heads, tape guides, pins and rubber rollers on either side of the video head.
2. Put enough alcohol on your swab to get it completely wet but not dripping. Carefully move the swab to the video head and wipe it side to side, not up and down. Try to gently spin the video head to reach all sides. Remove the swab; if you see dark streaks on the swab, your video head had a clog.
3. Use another swab and carefully wipe it over all sides of the tape guides, pins, and rollers. These parts are fragile, so be gentle.
4. Immediately use a dry swab over the video head (side to side) and the other parts you cleaned. Wait a few minutes to make sure the alcohol has dried before loading your videotape.
5. Load your tape and press play to see if the picture is clear. If it's better but still has a grainy look or horizontal bars, follow the steps again until your video head is completely cleaned.
Tags: video head, your video, guides pins, side side, tape guides