8mm camcorder tape - with a strange, red-coloured plastic guard-piece under the lid?

[Grant Millar]

Hi,

Has anyone ever seen an 8mm camcorder tape like this before?

The tape has a red piece of plastic below the lid, and I've never seen this before.

Am guessing that the tape is some sort of guard-piece to protect the tape, but I don't know how to remove it, so that I can digitise the tape. Does anyone know how to remove this red, plastic thing?

It's a Sony tape.

Have included photos below.

Regards,
Grant.

UPDATE
Thanks to Joerg and Graham (replies below), I now understand how to work with this tape.

[Joerg Polzfusz]

Hi! I kind of doubt that you have to remove it. All photos of Digital8 cartridges that I have found on the interweb feature this piece of plastic. However, only on Sony cartridges this piece is red, while it’s black on tdk, maxell or fuji tapes.

[Graham Sinden]

Hi Grant,

Don't remove it. It's all part of the protective cover and when the tape is inserted in the camera or player, the mechanism retracts it exposing the tape so it can be wrapped around the head.

If you want to see how it works there should be a small button on one side next to the hinge. If you press this in the cover can be pulled back and the red plastic also moves away. I have over a hundred of these tapes and all are the same.

Graham S

[Grant Millar]

Hi! I kind of doubt that you have to remove it. All photos of Digital8 cartridges that I have found on the interweb feature this piece of plastic. However, only on Sony cartridges this piece is red, while it’s black on tdk, maxell or fuji tapes.

Hi Joerg,
Thanks for your very helpful reply!
Yes, think I've been looking at Video8 and Hi8 tapes for far too long, and had forgotten what a Digital 8 tape looks like. And the red scared me!
Grant

[Grant Millar]

Hi Grant,

Don't remove it. It's all part of the protective cover and when the tape is inserted in the camera or player, the mechanism retracts it exposing the tape so it can be wrapped around the head.

If you want to see how it works there should be a small button on one side next to the hinge. If you press this in the cover can be pulled back and the red plastic also moves away. I have over a hundred of these tapes and all are the same.

Graham S

Hi Graham,
Thank you for that! Is really helpful!
Have just pressed the hinge and see exactly what you mean.
Now I just need to refresh my memory about how to do a wee manual rewind of the tape!
Thanks, again!
Grant

[Ken Finch]

Hi Grant. I am wondering why you want to manually rewind the tape. I presume you still have a working camera or player you can rewind the tape with that. So many different video camera recording formats. Sony produced 4 different tape formats over the years to my knowledge. There was Sony8, Hi8, digital8 and the mini dv. They all used a cassette of similar mechanical design. Until recently I had a video tape recorder which used Sony 8 tapes instead of VHS. Sony8 and Hi 8 were analogue not digital. The main problem with the tape format cameras is that the loading mechanism fails and it is an extremely expensive repair. The whole camera has to be dismantled. Not a d i y job! You can sometimes find a working one on EBay. Ken Finch.😊

[David Strelitz]

Just for Accuracy, Sony had used Red flaps on Hi8 ahead of Digital 8. They also produced different grades/products of tapes in the 8mm format some of which had red flaps. To suggest red flaps were only found on Digital 8 is 100% wrong.

[David Strelitz]

Now I just need to refresh my memory about how to do a wee manual rewind of the tape!

Grant

If you need to manually rewind for whatever reason, you need to release the brakes by jamming the release plunger, on the bottom of the shell, down.