G'day Bill,



     Thought you might find this interesting..  and maybe help save a

few headaches.  It's also a warning for others.



I picked up some cheap videotapes the other day for general workshop

use and have discovered a major flaw with them that could cause a few

headaches.



First up, I got the tape from a Cunninghams Warehouse (Do you have

them over there?), but I suspect they'll show up almost anywhere.



The tapes are "Stereo Club  XG1 E-180 HQ" .. "Japanese technology.

carefully Made in India"   Did I mention they were only $2.00 each?



Anyway, I'd just finished fixing a VCR and thought I'd put one of

these new tapes in and leave it running for a while. All was fine

until the tape got to the end, and it didn't wanna rewind :-(

My first thought was the machine had a problem, until I tried another

tape and it rewound that just fine..   I tried the new tape in another

machine and it rewound fine too.  Put the new tape back in the other

machine and still no rewind.



Great eh..  I've got a machine that refuses to rewind just one

particular tape - the tape itself rewinds fine on the two other

machines in the workshop.  Which is at fault, the machine or the tape?



First thing I did was to cover the EOT sensor hole at the side of the

tape, and as I suspected it then rewound fine.



I suspected that the cassette tape housing itself was shoddily made,

allowing IR to shine through the cracks, but close inspection and

carefully placed insulation tape proved this wasn't the case. Even if

it were the tape sensor itself would have to be oversensitive to

detect it..



I spent a shortwhile checking the VCR but soon concluded that its

sensors were fine, producing a nice healthy hi/low transition.



The next hour or so was spent checking the cassette itself, both

internally and externally.. I even replaced the tape-up spool with one

from another tape, just incase it was too reflective (well, it did

look shiny)..    I was about to give up on it, til I thought about the

tape itself...  it recorded fine, it played back fine..  it was also

semi transparent!!!  ..  I dunno why, but I decided to shine a torch

up against the tape, and sure enough, I could see the light coming

straight through..  albiet it looks like it has been filtered with a

red filter...    Cute eh...  this wonderful new technology has produce

a videotape that is semi-transparent to infrared.



I've not yet determined exactly why, but I have since discovered that

newer JVC's & NEC VCR's will have a problem with these tapes, the

older machines work fine..  The only Sharp machine I've had in also

worked fine.  A Panasonic M40 Camcorder won't even load the tapes.



I bought 5 of these tapes...  I've opened and checked 3 of them.. all

are transparent.  I'm gunna try to take the others back on Monday to

get a refund - and hopefully get them to stop selling them (if they

haven't already).



Anyway, be warned - if you get an influx of VCR's in for no rewind,

intermittent rewind, or stopping on play.. then check the tapes.. or

at least be aware of the problem..  The tapes are easy to identify..

just shine a torch through the tape itself... it's amazing!  I keep

going back to recheck them, 'cos I hardly believe such a blunder.



Cheers,

Rod



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