I'm trying to transfer some old video 8 tapes to DVD using a Sony Handycam TR305E but am having some problems with the sound.

The first half of the tape transferred fine, but then the sound started peaking horribly. I checked that HiFi sound is set to green (on) and also tried variations of channel 1/channel 2 only. I tried with the "edit" button both on and off.

When I rewound the tape the first part of the tape is now peaking too.

I tried changing phono leads, plugging directly into both vcr and tv separately to make sure it wasn't an issue with input to DVD recorder, but it's still playing up.

The funny thing is when I first press play the sound is usually ok for about a second, before peaking, almost as though the tape is getting up to speed and some automatic gain control is kicking in.

I tried another old tape, and this 2nd tape peaks when audio is set to HiFi/green, but is fine when set to channel 2 playback only. The other tapes however are peaking no matter what I do.

Any ideas?