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Originally Posted by Gordondav54
Update. I borrowed a reel from Brian (beamcurrent) ‘thanks’. Wound the tape through to inspect for damage and found none. Took up Paul Marshall’s kind offer of a trip to the ‘Freezing North’ his words not mine, to play the tape on his Quad machine. Paul has a most splendid collection of outside broadcast equipment including vintage vehicles and is looking to find a million or two to secure the collection in perpetuity for the nation, preferably before all the necessary expertise has gone. It is a mystery such a working museum does not exist already. The UK has a uniquely rich history of TV broadcasting.
I learned that many video machines play the shiny side of the tape to prolong the head life so the marks originally observed on the tape are not on the correct side. Paul played the tape but there seemed nothing but noise on the picture and a continuous tone on the sound. We tried reversing the tape using a vintage Studer audio machine and playing the other side. Still nothing, so it would appear the tape has been erased.
Thanks to Paul for sacrificing some head time on his splendid Quad machine. At least the beeb will not be beating a path to my door for a long lost episode of Dad’s Army. I’m glad I didn’t take the tape to the BFI who charge £250 just to look. The 400 mile round trip to Lincoln was an education, with two nights at a B and B and sundry meals worked out at about £250! Worth every penny.
It has since occurred to me, what about VR 660 helical scan? That would show as noise on Quad, wouldn't it?
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What a pity. If you master erase a tape on the VT machine itself then both the video and audio will naturally be erased. Same obviously if you bulk erase it too. The fact that there appears to still be audio on the tape is therefore rather odd as you would be going some to erase just the video and not the audio - you generally only get into that situation if you are intending to perform a video only edit on a tape. Was Paul able to determine if there was any actual RF on the tape or control track, I believe Paul has TR70 machines, were you able to try high band and low band playback? Just some random thoughts.