rew@cbosgd.UUCP (Bob Warren) (07/09/84)
I am having an interesting experience with my VCR that I thought I would
pass on to the net. I have a Panasonic 1321 that I bought in January
and have (until this episode) had zero problems or complaints. Two weeks
ago I rented a tape from my local video store ('Life of Brian', if you're
curious) as well as some other goodies for my kids. Well the kids' tapes
played fine, the kids were put to bed and I slipped in 'Life of Brian' and
sat back to relax. Instead of a picture, I got total snow on my screen
but perfect sound. Furthermore, no other tape would now play on the machine.
I took the tapes back to the store and described the symptons, expressed
my opinion that there was something funny about the LOB tape. They put
it on their machine, fast forwarded for a couple of seconds and pushed
play --perfect picture, no problems. I was told my heads were probably
dirty and needed to be cleaned. So I took the VCR back where I bought it
and had them diagnose the problem --dirty heads, sure enough. The machine
then played fine, no problems.
Still wanting to see LOB, I went back to the video store and rented it
and some other tapes again. Other tapes played fine, I slipped in LOB
and sat back to see snow once again! This time I took the tapes back to
the store and told them they were going to play LOB on their machine
FROM THE BEGINNING. This time the tape did in their machine too --
nothing but snow. The upshot of this is that the video store is
repairing my VCR and crediting me for the tape rentals. This, of course,
does not cover my frustration and lost time. The video store owner
believes that someone who rented the tape had the leader come off the
takeup reel and (fearing they would have to pay for the tape) glued
or taped the tape back on. Bleed-through of the adhesive deposited
crud on the playback heads which then would not read the rest of the tape.
Anyone else had this problem? Any way to detect it before you put
the tape in? Best recovery scheme if it happens again?
Bob Warren
cbosgd!rew