Difference between 8mm vid and data tapes? (cleaning cassettes)

[Don White]

Hi folks. I'm here to flaunt my ignorance again, any help appreciated!

I'm transferring a bunch of old archival footage onto Digital8 (for reasons detailed in a previous thread), and have found that when the heads get dirty, I get pixelated recordings. So I clean them with a head-cleaning tape. Problem solved.

Except....

The one head-cleaning tape I have is about used up (it's a dry system). I ordered a bunch of head-cleaning tapes off Ebay and apparently got cleaning cartridges for 8mm data storage drives. The tapes seem visually identical to 8mm videotapes, but when my brother stuck one of them in his D8 camcorder, it got eaten, fortunately doing no permanent damage to the camcorder.

So here's my question: is there a difference between the cleaning tapes used in 8mm recording, and for data recording? A yes or no would be fine, any details would be gravy. Muchas gracias.

DJW

[Don White]

Oh, if it matters, the tapes I bought at Maxell HS-8/CL

[Jeff Donald]

I've never heard of that being done before, but I don't know if they are interchangeable or not. I would try to contact the manufacture and see what they say. Why risk expensive damage to your camera, when an email or two will probably get you your answer.