Tape stuck in uvw1800 beta cam sp

Use menu system to access "manual eject". Hold left arrow key and press menu to access menu. Follow from there.

I hate SONY, every piece of equipment I've bought from them always lets me down from mini DV tapes in the store, to Beta SP tapes, to UVw1800 decks. I've gone through every process in the menu, and nothing helped get the tape out. The last message was "Turn the power off and remove the cassette compartment while holding the lid of the cassette open." Once again, I HATE SONY WITH A PASSION. I removed the lid, unscrewed the screws. The tape compartment moved around a little, but I'm not yanking the thing out at risk of breaking something causing even worse damage. Fidgeted with it some more and to no avail I could not remove the stupid tape compartment. I finally went back to the menu section, found my way to CASS-COMPARTMENT , selected that and it ejected my tape by ripping apart the tape reel. I don't know whether to take a sledge hammer do this deck, or get ripped off from some **** techincal shop charging more money for what its worth to fix the miserable peace of . . . equipment.

One of your reel motors died. Most likely the takeup side. If You can't get the tape out by the menu solution, remove the top panel, unthread the tape by rotating the loading motor which is in the rear right corner towards yourself. If the tape doesn't spool back into the
cassette by now you need to do this by using the menu. If you find the "cassette motor" check you might be able to use that to use the one functioning cassette motor to get the tape reeled in to the cassette. Pay attention to the arm that swings out in the middle in front of the drum. It's the "tension arm" and it tends to hang up after about 10 years when the grease in it hardens. If you see that happen the cure could be manually pulling it back while the tape unthreads. Oiling that joint afterwards could keep
it from happening again.

Rich Dudley,
Betacam Expert ([email protected])