Sony Cameras, never again
I've had similar, except it was the eject mechanism that failed, so I couldn't even load the tape.
Two reasons why I'll never buy a Sony again:
1. The CMOS sensor on my camera was encased in resin and melted. Sony offered to replace them under warranty but it showed the cheapness of construction. Is a ceramic casing really so much more expensive?
2. Proprietary head cleaning tapes. My MiniDV camera picture showed banding on the picture. So I bought a cleaning tape (not from Sony) that didn't work. I bought a second cleaning tape that also made no difference.
So in the end I bought a Sony tape that worked fine. But I noticed it had electrical contacts which obviously "reset" some circuit internally to clear the problem with the picture. So the heads didn't need cleaning at all, it was just some software routine in the camera designed to sell cleaning tapes.