Sorry Barry but the heads do degenerate also the heads are not the drum but the tiny slivers of metal at the bottom! thats why the drum is offset so they scan the whole tape area With regard to the tapes they will fade over a period of years (sorry ) and there aint nothing you can do apart from running the progs thru a pc and using video software to try and clean them up a bit. But just remember the old Hi Fi saying "rubbish in rubbish out". just transfer them to dvd or cd using divx to compress and they will keep for years
