question about an old videotape

I don't know if any of yous would be able to explain this, but I might as well give it a try.

My mother and sister decided to watch an old VHS tape from a the 1980s of their soap opera. When they put the tape in my VCR/DVD player the video would show when fast forwarding or rewinding, but when it was put on play, no video would show up: the tv would display a blue screen with a little "no signal" message floating around.

They then put the tape in the VCR/DVD player in my parents' room (of which only the VHS portion works now), and the video shows up though at some times the quality is not good.

Does any have an explanation for what is going on?

Sounds like your player sucks.

vcr heads could be dirty.

Sounds like your player sucks.

Necrifer

[QUOTE="Necrifer"]

Sounds like your player sucks.

whipassmt

[QUOTE="whipassmt"]

[QUOTE="Necrifer"]

Sounds like your player sucks.

LJS9502_basic

the tape is actually coming in quite decently on my parents' vcr/dvd player now, it doesn't seem to "jump" around as much as when it was first put in. I'll have to see what happens when I put another tape in my vcr/dvd, I still have to catch up on the first half of the Bible episode from Easter Sunday that I taped on the History Channel (oh and now that the Bible series is over, I should get rid of the scheduled recording for that time slot on the timer record program).

update: the picture briefly blurred and went black and white for a couple seconds a while ago. Overall it's going well though, considering the age of the tape.