Hi, Shai, You're a brave man doing video, too <smile>. Ten years ago I heard of the same problem/practice with 3/4-inch U-Matic. Twenty years ago (plus or minus) I had this issue with one box of 10 DAT tapes I bought new back then. I have probably run fewer than twenty tapes in my DA-38. With that said, binder hydrolysis is probably an issue with some runs of coated tape (though I would not expect it with metal evaporated tapes). So far, I have baked one DAT tape and that made it recoverable. Oddly, it was an Ampex tape. Storage conditions make a huge difference. The Library of Congress is apparently NOT experiencing the need for increased baking times that other restorers and I have noted due to the fact that they are transferring their holdings which are stored in proper storage conditions (which I do not have the specifics for at the moment). Is it possible that your location in Israel is a dry one (I do recall a fair amount of desert there, though I also recall that much of the population is in the coastal region) which is reducing the amount of binder hydrolysis? Trying to generate a "big picture" from all these data points is interesting and sometimes frustrating, and I do not think we'll ever know the complete picture due to the lot-to-lot chemistry changes and manufacturing tolerances that have been documented. Cheers, Richard On 2012-09-20 1:26 AM, Shai Drori wrote: > Hi Joe > Why are you stopping many times to clean heads on 8mm and Hi8? That > never happens to me. I would check tape path or heads or try another > deck just to be sure. Sounds odd. Any one else has data on this? > Shai -- Richard L. Hess email: [log in to unmask] Aurora, Ontario, Canada (905) 713 6733 1-877-TAPE-FIX http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.