hi8 fottage gone

[Donnaaime]

The footage on my hi8 tapes has gone. It is just showing a speckly screen with no sound. I am devestated as they contained videos of my children as babies. Why would this happen?can they wipe themselves over time?

 

[Z-Tech]

All magnetic storage deteriorates over time. There are ways to accelerate that deterioration, such as sitting them on top of your stereo speakers (or anything magnetic), high temps, high humidity. The first thing I would do is try another device for playback. If it turns out that it is the device that is the problem, you should look into backing them up digitally.