PSA: Rewinding a T-120 tape at standard speed wears the heads 3x less than fast winding

I was digging through a VCR repair manual from 1987 at a thrift store in Boise and found a table showing standard play rewind puts way less stress on the helical drum compared to the high speed option, so now I always hit play-rewind instead of the fast button and my tapes run smoother anyone else notice less tracking issues doing it slow?

2 comments

2 Comments

colemartinez7d ago

Actually that manual's got a point but you're mixing up two different things. The helical drum is the spinning part with the video heads. Rewinding slow or fast doesn't touch those heads at all. The wear comes from the tape rubbing across them during playback or recording. Rewind just uses the take-up reel motor and pinch roller if you're doing play-rewind. Fast forward uses the reel motors direct. So if anything slow rewind saves wear on the reel belts and idler tires, not the video heads. Still good practice though those old rubber parts get brittle.

the_gavin6d ago

You nailed it. I had a JVC HR-S7600U that started acting up years ago, and a guy at a repair shop told me the same thing. Those idler tires get hard as rocks and start slipping. I started using slow rewind on all my old decks after that and it did seem to keep them going longer. The rubber parts are always the first to go on these things.