Thanks for your comments. Sony is a likely source since, as you say, they
were a major manufacturer in 8mm/Hi8.

Earlier Teac airborne units were VHS and U-matic (roughly '80s and '70s)
while the Hi8 units which were still being used recently as flight mission
recorders, began in the early '90s.

Yep, I had considered buying random Sony VCR and camcorder models to try to
match parts, but then I'd get mired down with wanting to see if those units
could be repaired. I'm already easily distracted.

As far as Hi8 units go, there may have only been a couple of other brands of
Hi8 VCR units other than Sony.
There were numerous brands of camcorders, but many of the Hi8 camcorder
brands didn't produce VCRs.

In 8MM/Video8, Canon, Sharp, Samsung, even Memorex(Funai?) had some models,
but the other manufacturers that had previously made huge numbers of VHS
units didn't get involved (though some of them made VHS-C models).

Teac produced some commercial multi-channel data recorders, but no video
equipment for the US consumer market, as far as I can tell.
The data recorder models I've seen online have used audio-sized cassettes,
or VHS tapes for storage.

--
Cheers,
WB
..............


"Bruce Esquibel" wrote in message
...
Wild_Bill wrote:

Any help in obtaining parts would be gratefully appreciated.
I'd like to find a US supplier of Hi8/Video8 pinch rollers where I can
select the rollers by the actual part dimensions instead of Brand-Model.

I'd also like to find a supplier with the same selection for upper
drum/video heads for Hi8 tape mechanisms.

I really can't imagine who else there would be to deal with except Sony.

I'm pretty confident saying they had a lock on the market with Hi8,
especially with decks. Besides Teac, Pioneer had one or two models and as
far as I remember, besides the nameplate, inside they were identical to
another Sony model.

Besides buying scrap units off ebay and crossing your fingers, it seems
rather doubtful anyone is stocking any kind of parts of those, including
Sony.

I'd guess it'll be harder finding NOS parts for those than beta ones at
this
point.

-bruce