Mould on VHS tape

philnavigator · 13-01-2012, 10:32

I have been slowly transferring my old home videos onto disc for mpnths now and have recently come across a few tapes that were stored in a damp atmosphere, resulting in mould appearing on the tape itself.

Common sense tells me that the ones that have a lot of mould (clearly seen through the cassette window) should not go anywhere near my trusted old VCR, as it will just be transferred onto the heads and stop the project in its tracks......however I have a question.

A couple of the tapes have, literally, a few tiny spots of mould visible, like sugar grains, rather than the large amounts of the others, so is it possible these might be OK to transfer and not damage the VCR?

Or is it a case of bin the lot? Any help appreciated.

Nigel Goodwin · 13-01-2012, 11:16

All you can do really is try them - but I would suggest transferring all the known good tapes first - then (once you don't really need the VCR any more) you could try the contaminated ones, starting with the best of them.

If you've got an old duff VCR (heads gone etc.) as well as your working one, you could try playing them through that first, to remove as much contamination as possible.

Kodaz · 13-01-2012, 22:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by philnavigator

Common sense tells me that the ones that have a lot of mould (clearly seen through the cassette window) should not go anywhere near my trusted old VCR, as it will just be transferred onto the heads and stop the project in its tracks......however I have a question.

A couple of the tapes have, literally, a few tiny spots of mould visible, like sugar grains, rather than the large amounts of the others, so is it possible these might be OK to transfer and not damage the VCR?

If you look online, there's quite a lot of information. Searching Google for various combinations of "mould", "mold" [the US spelling], "vhs", "videotape" and so on turns up a lot. e.g.:-
[LIST][*]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=videotape+mold[*]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vhs+mould[/LIST]
The problem is finding out which of this info is useful to you (and which is from people who actually know what they're talking about)! Anyway, my suspicion is that some of the companies that turn up *might* be able to help if you're willing to pay them enough- but that could be quite a lot(!)

And I suspect that even they have limits. It seems at any rate that you do want to be sure that you've killed *then* removed the mould from the tape properly before you try playing it back.

Here are various semi-random links (you may have to scroll down or search to find the paragraphs about mould):-
[LIST][*]http://www.videointerchange.com/video_recovery.htm[*]http://www.dvdyourmemories.com/blog/...-and-symptoms/[*]http://cool.conservation-us.org/byfo.../msg00216.html[*]http://askville.amazon.com/safe-remo...uestId=1740795[*]http://askville.amazon.com/clean-mol...uestId=1445534[/LIST]
I do *not* vouch for the quality of any of the above. (I'm not an expert, so I'm not equipped to judge if any of those people are talking out of their nether regions!)

One thing; if you do get them successfully transferred, make sure that you have more than one digital copy

I would *not* bet my life on any given recordable DVD being usable in (say) 15 years time; relying in this to preserve your painstakingly-recovered video would be somewhat "out of the frying pan and into the fire!"

The one advantage of digital is that you can make many perfect copies (and do this repeatedly)- the disadvantage is that much digital media has a questionable lifespan!

Fortunately, the former means you can spread the risk by storing multiple copies on different types of media and storing in different locations. If you think this is overly paranoid... well, keep two or more copies in different places at least.

BTW, I recommend using Verbatim DVDs. I don't claim they're perfect or infallible, but Verbatim are considered one of the more reliable brands out there and at least make their own discs. (Most "big name" DVDs are simply rebranded media actually produced by one of the bulk DVD manufacturers. In such cases, both "brand" and past performance can be meaningless if they switch the underlying media for the "same" range.)

Bill Clinton · 09-03-2014, 02:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kodaz

If you look online, there's quite a lot of information. Searching Google for various combinations of "mould", "mold" [the US spelling], "vhs", "videotape" and so on turns up a lot. e.g.:-
[LIST][*]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=videotape+mold[*]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vhs+mould[/LIST]
The problem is finding out which of this info is useful to you (and which is from people who actually know what they're talking about)! Anyway, my suspicion is that some of the companies that turn up *might* be able to help if you're willing to pay them enough- but that could be quite a lot(!)

And I suspect that even they have limits. It seems at any rate that you do want to be sure that you've killed *then* removed the mould from the tape properly before you try playing it back.

Here are various semi-random links (you may have to scroll down or search to find the paragraphs about mould):-
[LIST][*]http://www.videointerchange.com/video_recovery.htm[*]http://www.dvdyourmemories.com/blog/...-and-symptoms/[*]http://cool.conservation-us.org/byfo.../msg00216.html[*]http://askville.amazon.com/safe-remo...uestId=1740795[*]http://askville.amazon.com/clean-mol...uestId=1445534[/LIST]
I do *not* vouch for the quality of any of the above. (I'm not an expert, so I'm not equipped to judge if any of those people are talking out of their nether regions!)

One thing; if you do get them successfully transferred, make sure that you have more than one digital copy

I would *not* bet my life on any given recordable DVD being usable in (say) 15 years time; relying in this to preserve your painstakingly-recovered video would be somewhat "out of the frying pan and into the fire!"

The one advantage of digital is that you can make many perfect copies (and do this repeatedly)- the disadvantage is that much digital media has a questionable lifespan!

Fortunately, the former means you can spread the risk by storing multiple copies on different types of media and storing in different locations. If you think this is overly paranoid... well, keep two or more copies in different places at least.

BTW, I recommend using Verbatim DVDs. I don't claim they're perfect or infallible, but Verbatim are considered one of the more reliable brands out there and at least make their own discs. (Most "big name" DVDs are simply rebranded media actually produced by one of the bulk DVD manufacturers. In such cases, both "brand" and past performance can be meaningless if they switch the underlying media for the "same" range.)

I write to a DVD-R, obviously recording from the VCR to the DVD recorder. And then I take that, and encode it to a MP4 file using IMToo DVD Ripper. With this file you can store it on a couple of external hard drives for safekeeping.

I hope I'm not also going to suffer from mouldy tapes, there's a load of tapes in a outside garage that haven't been converted yet, perhaps some of these are going to have issues. I could report back and let you know.

Kodaz · 09-03-2014, 15:48

I seem to remember pointing you towards this two-year-old thread via my reply to you elsewhere, but that thread doesn't seem to exist any more. Perhaps it was pushed down a memory hole for breaking the forum rules on discussing, er... certain topics. (Ahem)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Clinton

I write to a DVD-R, obviously recording from the VCR to the DVD recorder. And then I take that, and encode it to a MP4 file using IMToo DVD Ripper. With this file you can store it on a couple of external hard drives for safekeeping.

As far as personally-recorded (non-protected) DVDs are concerned, you should be able to transfer the original MPEG2-encoded DVD video without having to re-encode it to MPEG-4 (MP4)... unless of course you wanted to anyway.

Obviously, one should only do this with material one owns the rights to.

Also, this technique doesn't apply to commercial DVDs, which have copy protection (similar to what commercial videotapes used). If there was any way of circumventing either VHS or DVD copy protection, discussing it here would likely result in the thread being removed, and we don't want that to happen... again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bill Clinton

I hope I'm not also going to suffer from mouldy tapes, there's a load of tapes in a outside garage that haven't been converted yet, perhaps some of these are going to have issues. I could report back and let you know.

That would be intersting... also, note the existence of this similar thread on videocassette mould.

Also, because we don't want to be seen endorsing copyright violation, please note that if you do not own the rights to the material on those tapes, please ensure that you obtain clearance from the copyright holders before (e.g.) attempting to transfer a 1986 episode of "Saturday Superstore" from a mouldy Scotch E180. Thank you!

anthony david · 09-03-2014, 17:42

The mould will be transferred to the machine's mech and is likely to be passed on to other tapes making them eventually unplayable. Unless you intend to transfer the tapes, then scrap them together with the machine, forget the idea.

Tassium · 13-03-2014, 21:21

I wonder how this turned out?

BeanFeastival · 14-03-2014, 22:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kodaz

If you look online, there's quite a lot of information. Searching Google for various combinations of "mould", "mold" [the US spelling], "vhs", "videotape" and so on turns up a lot. e.g.:-
[LIST][*]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=videotape+mold[*]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vhs+mould[/LIST]
The problem is finding out which of this info is useful to you (and which is from people who actually know what they're talking about)! Anyway, my suspicion is that some of the companies that turn up *might* be able to help if you're willing to pay them enough- but that could be quite a lot(!)

And I suspect that even they have limits. It seems at any rate that you do want to be sure that you've killed *then* removed the mould from the tape properly before you try playing it back.

Here are various semi-random links (you may have to scroll down or search to find the paragraphs about mould):-
[LIST][*]http://www.videointerchange.com/video_recovery.htm[*]http://www.dvdyourmemories.com/blog/...-and-symptoms/[*]http://cool.conservation-us.org/byfo.../msg00216.html[*]http://askville.amazon.com/safe-remo...uestId=1740795[*]http://askville.amazon.com/clean-mol...uestId=1445534[/LIST]
I do *not* vouch for the quality of any of the above. (I'm not an expert, so I'm not equipped to judge if any of those people are talking out of their nether regions!)

One thing; if you do get them successfully transferred, make sure that you have more than one digital copy

I would *not* bet my life on any given recordable DVD being usable in (say) 15 years time; relying in this to preserve your painstakingly-recovered video would be somewhat "out of the frying pan and into the fire!"

The one advantage of digital is that you can make many perfect copies (and do this repeatedly)- the disadvantage is that much digital media has a questionable lifespan!

Fortunately, the former means you can spread the risk by storing multiple copies on different types of media and storing in different locations. If you think this is overly paranoid... well, keep two or more copies in different places at least.

BTW, I recommend using Verbatim DVDs. I don't claim they're perfect or infallible, but Verbatim are considered one of the more reliable brands out there and at least make their own discs. (Most "big name" DVDs are simply rebranded media actually produced by one of the bulk DVD manufacturers. In such cases, both "brand" and past performance can be meaningless if they switch the underlying media for the "same" range.)

As regards to the recording media branding, does that mean that Tesco branded DVD media is actually just rebranded media or does Tesco actually have their own original brand DVD media?

Plus are Kodak DVD discs simply rebranded media too?

Kodaz · 15-03-2014, 23:56

Quote:

Originally Posted by BeanFeastival

As regards to the recording media branding, does that mean that Tesco branded DVD media is actually just rebranded media or does Tesco actually have their own original brand DVD media?

Plus are Kodak DVD discs simply rebranded media too?

As I've already said, the number of actual DVD *manufacturers* (*) is surprisingly small and even most of the "name" brands don't manufacture their own.

Since Tesco- to the best of my knowledge- don't make any of their own-brand stuff in general (i.e. they subcontract it to various companies), I can confidently guess that there's virtually no chance they make "their" own discs anyway.

More than likely they arrange to have some anonymous media purchased at a price/quality tradeoff that suits them and have them branded with their own name.

Some of the bigger "names" might have some say in the makeup of the discs, but it's known that even major brands like Fujifilm can switch the underlying product manufacturer for what is marketed as the "same" disc, rendering its past reputation irrelevant (since it's effectively a different disc with possibly very different characteristics).

I don't know about Kodak for sure- they used to sell very well-reputed CDs that actually used gold for the reflective layer (and were accordingly expensive). I don't know if they made those themselves or had a subcontractor custom make them, but that's long gone.

I'd be surprised if they made their own discs these days though, and even more surprised if they're anything better than midrange-quality mass media from CMC or Moser Baer (two relatively anonymous manufacturers that actually *make* a lot of the big name discs).

Worryingly, nowadays even Verbatim seem to be selling some relabelled discs made by other manufacturers in their lower-end lines.

Here's an example of the type of issues people concern themselves about with recordable DVDs and the like.

According to that discussion (already 2 1/2 years old) , it appears to be getting harder and harder to easily (and consistently) source high-quality, reliable optical disc (i.e. CD, DVD Blu-Ray) media.

The price of blank media has already been incredibly cheap for some time, and since the market has declined quite noticeably in the past few years (as people move towards other forms of media storage and online viewing), this is probably squeezing manufacturers even harder, to the point that it's probably easier for the remaining few to start using CMC and Moser Baer-manufactured discs instead.

I just realised that this post probably made things more complicated than helping, but my original comment was made two years back, and things *have* moved on since then- and not in a good way.

(*) That list doesn't seem to be complete, though, as it doesn't include Mitsubishi/Verbatim

TheVoid · 16-03-2014, 08:44

I had this years ago. If you rewind to the start of the tape, and then fast forward to the end, then rewind again, it does clear the mould but you may still have viewing issues. Would use a machine you don't care if it breaks though.

13-01-2012, 10:32	#1
philnavigator Forum Member Join Date: May 2002 Location: West Wales Posts: 288	Mould on VHS tape I have been slowly transferring my old home videos onto disc for mpnths now and have recently come across a few tapes that were stored in a damp atmosphere, resulting in mould appearing on the tape itself. Common sense tells me that the ones that have a lot of mould (clearly seen through the cassette window) should not go anywhere near my trusted old VCR, as it will just be transferred onto the heads and stop the project in its tracks......however I have a question. A couple of the tapes have, literally, a few tiny spots of mould visible, like sugar grains, rather than the large amounts of the others, so is it possible these might be OK to transfer and not damage the VCR? Or is it a case of bin the lot? Any help appreciated.

13-01-2012, 11:16	#2
Nigel Goodwin Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2006 Location: North Derbyshire Posts: 41,789	All you can do really is try them - but I would suggest transferring all the known good tapes first - then (once you don't really need the VCR any more) you could try the contaminated ones, starting with the best of them. If you've got an old duff VCR (heads gone etc.) as well as your working one, you could try playing them through that first, to remove as much contamination as possible.

13-01-2012, 22:34	#3
Kodaz Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1,006	Quote: Originally Posted by philnavigator Common sense tells me that the ones that have a lot of mould (clearly seen through the cassette window) should not go anywhere near my trusted old VCR, as it will just be transferred onto the heads and stop the project in its tracks......however I have a question. A couple of the tapes have, literally, a few tiny spots of mould visible, like sugar grains, rather than the large amounts of the others, so is it possible these might be OK to transfer and not damage the VCR? If you look online, there's quite a lot of information. Searching Google for various combinations of "mould", "mold" [the US spelling], "vhs", "videotape" and so on turns up a lot. e.g.:- [LIST][]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=videotape+mold[]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vhs+mould[/LIST] The problem is finding out which of this info is useful to you (and which is from people who actually know what they're talking about)! Anyway, my suspicion is that some of the companies that turn up might be able to help if you're willing to pay them enough- but that could be quite a lot(!) And I suspect that even they have limits. It seems at any rate that you do want to be sure that you've killed then removed the mould from the tape properly before you try playing it back. Here are various semi-random links (you may have to scroll down or search to find the paragraphs about mould):- [LIST][]http://www.videointerchange.com/video_recovery.htm[]http://www.dvdyourmemories.com/blog/...-and-symptoms/[]http://cool.conservation-us.org/byfo.../msg00216.html[]http://askville.amazon.com/safe-remo...uestId=1740795[]http://askville.amazon.com/clean-mol...uestId=1445534[/LIST] I do not* vouch for the quality of any of the above. (I'm not an expert, so I'm not equipped to judge if any of those people are talking out of their nether regions!) One thing; if you do get them successfully transferred, make sure that you have more than one digital copy I would not bet my life on any given recordable DVD being usable in (say) 15 years time; relying in this to preserve your painstakingly-recovered video would be somewhat "out of the frying pan and into the fire!" The one advantage of digital is that you can make many perfect copies (and do this repeatedly)- the disadvantage is that much digital media has a questionable lifespan! Fortunately, the former means you can spread the risk by storing multiple copies on different types of media and storing in different locations. If you think this is overly paranoid... well, keep two or more copies in different places at least. BTW, I recommend using Verbatim DVDs. I don't claim they're perfect or infallible, but Verbatim are considered one of the more reliable brands out there and at least make their own discs. (Most "big name" DVDs are simply rebranded media actually produced by one of the bulk DVD manufacturers. In such cases, both "brand" and past performance can be meaningless if they switch the underlying media for the "same" range.)

09-03-2014, 02:04	#4
Bill Clinton Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: SouthWirral 1986-2002 & 2004-? Posts: 7,082	Quote: Originally Posted by Kodaz If you look online, there's quite a lot of information. Searching Google for various combinations of "mould", "mold" [the US spelling], "vhs", "videotape" and so on turns up a lot. e.g.:- [LIST][]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=videotape+mold[]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vhs+mould[/LIST] The problem is finding out which of this info is useful to you (and which is from people who actually know what they're talking about)! Anyway, my suspicion is that some of the companies that turn up might be able to help if you're willing to pay them enough- but that could be quite a lot(!) And I suspect that even they have limits. It seems at any rate that you do want to be sure that you've killed then removed the mould from the tape properly before you try playing it back. Here are various semi-random links (you may have to scroll down or search to find the paragraphs about mould):- [LIST][]http://www.videointerchange.com/video_recovery.htm[]http://www.dvdyourmemories.com/blog/...-and-symptoms/[]http://cool.conservation-us.org/byfo.../msg00216.html[]http://askville.amazon.com/safe-remo...uestId=1740795[]http://askville.amazon.com/clean-mol...uestId=1445534[/LIST] I do not* vouch for the quality of any of the above. (I'm not an expert, so I'm not equipped to judge if any of those people are talking out of their nether regions!) One thing; if you do get them successfully transferred, make sure that you have more than one digital copy I would not bet my life on any given recordable DVD being usable in (say) 15 years time; relying in this to preserve your painstakingly-recovered video would be somewhat "out of the frying pan and into the fire!" The one advantage of digital is that you can make many perfect copies (and do this repeatedly)- the disadvantage is that much digital media has a questionable lifespan! Fortunately, the former means you can spread the risk by storing multiple copies on different types of media and storing in different locations. If you think this is overly paranoid... well, keep two or more copies in different places at least. BTW, I recommend using Verbatim DVDs. I don't claim they're perfect or infallible, but Verbatim are considered one of the more reliable brands out there and at least make their own discs. (Most "big name" DVDs are simply rebranded media actually produced by one of the bulk DVD manufacturers. In such cases, both "brand" and past performance can be meaningless if they switch the underlying media for the "same" range.) I write to a DVD-R, obviously recording from the VCR to the DVD recorder. And then I take that, and encode it to a MP4 file using IMToo DVD Ripper. With this file you can store it on a couple of external hard drives for safekeeping. I hope I'm not also going to suffer from mouldy tapes, there's a load of tapes in a outside garage that haven't been converted yet, perhaps some of these are going to have issues. I could report back and let you know.

09-03-2014, 15:48	#5
Kodaz Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1,006	I seem to remember pointing you towards this two-year-old thread via my reply to you elsewhere, but that thread doesn't seem to exist any more. Perhaps it was pushed down a memory hole for breaking the forum rules on discussing, er... certain topics. (Ahem) Quote: Originally Posted by Bill Clinton I write to a DVD-R, obviously recording from the VCR to the DVD recorder. And then I take that, and encode it to a MP4 file using IMToo DVD Ripper. With this file you can store it on a couple of external hard drives for safekeeping. As far as personally-recorded (non-protected) DVDs are concerned, you should be able to transfer the original MPEG2-encoded DVD video without having to re-encode it to MPEG-4 (MP4)... unless of course you wanted to anyway. Obviously, one should only do this with material one owns the rights to. Also, this technique doesn't apply to commercial DVDs, which have copy protection (similar to what commercial videotapes used). If there was any way of circumventing either VHS or DVD copy protection, discussing it here would likely result in the thread being removed, and we don't want that to happen... again. Quote: Originally Posted by Bill Clinton I hope I'm not also going to suffer from mouldy tapes, there's a load of tapes in a outside garage that haven't been converted yet, perhaps some of these are going to have issues. I could report back and let you know. That would be intersting... also, note the existence of this similar thread on videocassette mould. Also, because we don't want to be seen endorsing copyright violation, please note that if you do not own the rights to the material on those tapes, please ensure that you obtain clearance from the copyright holders before (e.g.) attempting to transfer a 1986 episode of "Saturday Superstore" from a mouldy Scotch E180. Thank you!

09-03-2014, 17:42	#6
anthony david Forum Member Join Date: Dec 2012 Posts: 3,469	The mould will be transferred to the machine's mech and is likely to be passed on to other tapes making them eventually unplayable. Unless you intend to transfer the tapes, then scrap them together with the machine, forget the idea.

13-03-2014, 21:21	#7
Tassium Forum Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: It's Grim Posts: 24,412	I wonder how this turned out?

14-03-2014, 22:48	#8
BeanFeastival Inactive Member Join Date: Mar 2014 Posts: 5	Quote: Originally Posted by Kodaz If you look online, there's quite a lot of information. Searching Google for various combinations of "mould", "mold" [the US spelling], "vhs", "videotape" and so on turns up a lot. e.g.:- [LIST][]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=videotape+mold[]http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=vhs+mould[/LIST] The problem is finding out which of this info is useful to you (and which is from people who actually know what they're talking about)! Anyway, my suspicion is that some of the companies that turn up might be able to help if you're willing to pay them enough- but that could be quite a lot(!) And I suspect that even they have limits. It seems at any rate that you do want to be sure that you've killed then removed the mould from the tape properly before you try playing it back. Here are various semi-random links (you may have to scroll down or search to find the paragraphs about mould):- [LIST][]http://www.videointerchange.com/video_recovery.htm[]http://www.dvdyourmemories.com/blog/...-and-symptoms/[]http://cool.conservation-us.org/byfo.../msg00216.html[]http://askville.amazon.com/safe-remo...uestId=1740795[]http://askville.amazon.com/clean-mol...uestId=1445534[/LIST] I do not* vouch for the quality of any of the above. (I'm not an expert, so I'm not equipped to judge if any of those people are talking out of their nether regions!) One thing; if you do get them successfully transferred, make sure that you have more than one digital copy I would not bet my life on any given recordable DVD being usable in (say) 15 years time; relying in this to preserve your painstakingly-recovered video would be somewhat "out of the frying pan and into the fire!" The one advantage of digital is that you can make many perfect copies (and do this repeatedly)- the disadvantage is that much digital media has a questionable lifespan! Fortunately, the former means you can spread the risk by storing multiple copies on different types of media and storing in different locations. If you think this is overly paranoid... well, keep two or more copies in different places at least. BTW, I recommend using Verbatim DVDs. I don't claim they're perfect or infallible, but Verbatim are considered one of the more reliable brands out there and at least make their own discs. (Most "big name" DVDs are simply rebranded media actually produced by one of the bulk DVD manufacturers. In such cases, both "brand" and past performance can be meaningless if they switch the underlying media for the "same" range.) As regards to the recording media branding, does that mean that Tesco branded DVD media is actually just rebranded media or does Tesco actually have their own original brand DVD media? Plus are Kodak DVD discs simply rebranded media too?

15-03-2014, 23:56	#9
Kodaz Forum Member Join Date: Jul 2008 Posts: 1,006	Quote: Originally Posted by BeanFeastival As regards to the recording media branding, does that mean that Tesco branded DVD media is actually just rebranded media or does Tesco actually have their own original brand DVD media? Plus are Kodak DVD discs simply rebranded media too? As I've already said, the number of actual DVD manufacturers () is surprisingly small and even most of the "name" brands don't manufacture their own. Since Tesco- to the best of my knowledge- don't make any of their own-brand stuff in general (i.e. they subcontract it to various companies), I can confidently guess that there's virtually no chance they make "their" own discs anyway. More than likely they arrange to have some anonymous media purchased at a price/quality tradeoff that suits them and have them branded with their own name. Some of the bigger "names" might have some say in the makeup of the discs, but it's known that even major brands like Fujifilm can switch the underlying product manufacturer for what is marketed as the "same" disc, rendering its past reputation irrelevant (since it's effectively a different disc with possibly very different characteristics). I don't know about Kodak for sure- they used to sell very well-reputed CDs that actually used gold for the reflective layer (and were accordingly expensive). I don't know if they made those themselves or had a subcontractor custom make them, but that's long gone. I'd be surprised if they made their own discs these days though, and even more surprised if they're anything better than midrange-quality mass media from CMC or Moser Baer (two relatively anonymous manufacturers that actually make* a lot of the big name discs). Worryingly, nowadays even Verbatim seem to be selling some relabelled discs made by other manufacturers in their lower-end lines. Here's an example of the type of issues people concern themselves about with recordable DVDs and the like. According to that discussion (already 2 1/2 years old) , it appears to be getting harder and harder to easily (and consistently) source high-quality, reliable optical disc (i.e. CD, DVD Blu-Ray) media. The price of blank media has already been incredibly cheap for some time, and since the market has declined quite noticeably in the past few years (as people move towards other forms of media storage and online viewing), this is probably squeezing manufacturers even harder, to the point that it's probably easier for the remaining few to start using CMC and Moser Baer-manufactured discs instead. I just realised that this post probably made things more complicated than helping, but my original comment was made two years back, and things have moved on since then- and not in a good way. (*) That list doesn't seem to be complete, though, as it doesn't include Mitsubishi/Verbatim

16-03-2014, 08:44	#10
TheVoid Forum Member Join Date: Apr 2012 Posts: 2,642	I had this years ago. If you rewind to the start of the tape, and then fast forward to the end, then rewind again, it does clear the mould but you may still have viewing issues. Would use a machine you don't care if it breaks though.

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Mould on VHS tape