No video on 8mm tapes, am I screwed?

[topmade]

I have some old 8mm tapes that have sentimental videos of our kids when they were young. I am trying to transfer the videos, and borrowed a co-workers 8mm camcorder and all three tapes have nothing on them?? I've confirmed that the camcorder works fine with his tapes, but when I put in mine, they show nothing at all. My tapes were originally recorded on a sony handycam which got stolen later, but my co-workers is a sanyo, which I don't think should make any difference. Do these tapes lose their data over time? They've been sitting in my drawer for about 6 years. Would any company be able to recover the data without costing my first born?

[xrayvsn]

Was your original camera a digital 8 camera by chance, or alternatively is your friend's camera a digital 8 camera and yours was Hi 8? Both use exactly the same tapes but once recorded, they are not interchangeable for playback.

[topmade]

You must be right. I can't recall exactly what mine was, but digital 8 does ring a bell and my friends one only says it's 8mm and it looks ancient compared to the sony. Well at least that kind of clears it up that the data should be fine still so I think I'll just take it to a shop to convert for me. The online prices are alright and it was hard enough as it is to find someone with one of these old units kicking around to test.

Thanks for your help.

[xrayvsn]

I would loan you my old school digital 8 Sony handycam, but my kids broke the charger right at the plug in on the camera, so I am sort of in the same boat as you.