Hi guys I have some old family videos that I wanted to transfer to a DVD recently I bought a Sony Hi8, long time ago I sold my old Hi8 sony camcorder (I don't remember the model but it was Hi8) I had this problem too and is happening with this one again.

when I press play it only looks blue but when I press rewind while playing I can see the recorded video but disappears when I release the rewind button the same applies for forward, now I see that the tape says "Hi8 MP" and aside it says "8D" then "120 Hi8" and "60 8D" is there any chance that I need an 8d camera to be able to play the video? but that tape was recorded with my old Hi8 camcorder!! or maybe with an 8mm camcorder? I actually don't remember if it was recorded with Hi8 or 8 because I had another cameras and I remember they were 8 and Hi8 but I don't remember witch one I used to record with this tape.

okey now I tried to record something in the same tape like 123 testing testing and it played it fine but the old video won't show up.

any ideas??

Well, I'll give you my theory (I could be wrong).
I think either your original cam or your new cam had a head alignment problem.
Let's pretend that your original cam had the problem. It would be able to play back ok because the same heads that were out of aligned are playing back. put that tape in any other Hi8 machine with proper alignment and it won't play back.
Or, it could be the other way around. The only sure way to tell would be (maybe) to try your old tapes in a different hi8 machine. If this is the problem, it is probably possible to get a shop to "misalign" your present Hi8 so that it can play back your old tapes. Again, this is all just a theory.