Holy fucking shit these things can be so damn pissy. Figured if it could play back, and the direct output is good, it's probably got a good chance of recording right? Haha, nope! Some can't write well enough to overwrite the existing recordings, some just don't have sound for some reason (I sure as heck checked that on the direct out because I've had mic issues already), the digital8 cam that works great for rips just absolutely ties it's shoes together when asked to record a digital8 tape. And that's the one I've already cleaned the heads on too.
Ugh, going to spend all weekend debugging these things. I don't really want to buy a degausser at this point, I feel like doing a very heavy erase on the recorded tapes would help a lot. Maybe?