Beta Tapes

[oldlag]

I've seen a lot notes about dropped frames etc. when capturing from VHS tapes. Should I expect the same problems with Beta tapes? I plan on using the ADVC100.

[ktnwin]

Dropping frames during capture has nothing to do with the source video (VHS, BETA, LASER DISC,etc...) It is stricttly affected by your capture method (capture method, capture resolution, computer configuration...)

[Nelson37]

On the contrary, Source IS important. Particularly VHS tape as it has a number of degradation and playback issues which will most certainly be a cause of dropped frames, quite aside from any other system issues.

[Rawhead]

source is important to the quality of the capture but IMO not important to the dropped frames. Whatever source you have coming out of whatever is converted by the input source. If you are doing a pure digital to digital transefer then the data should be the same and only reliant on your hardware. But analog beta/vhs should be no different as far as frame captures go because there are no frames in analog. They are just imagined frames by time code. Frames are from the old school film days when you could actually count the frames. In analog video you can only count what your hardware lets you count or what the timecode printed on the tape says.
In digital you can re create the frames mode.

Works the same with Audio too.

[obiron]

I've seen a lot notes about dropped frames etc. when capturing from VHS tapes. Should I expect the same problems with Beta tapes? I plan on using the ADVC100.

I can give you my personal experience so far. I have a number of Beta tapes from the early 80's to early 90's that I've started to capture. I've completed one tape. I used the ADVC100 and iuVCR to capture. I've captured hundreds of thousands of frames without dropping a single frame. The tape had some areas where you could see tracking noise but it didn't seem to affect the capture. I thought that might cause dropped frames but it didn't. At least not yet.

The only problems I've run into are areas where there is a break in the timecode on the tape. If I don't stop the capture and restart it, then the audio can get out of sync with the video. I don't know what causes this but it is my suspicion, based on the observed behavior, that the ADVC100 is losing the sync because there is no audio or video at these points. This is certainly not scientific, so if anyone can shed to light on this area, that would be great. Like I said, the way I recover is to stop the capture, move the tape to where there is signal, then restart the capture. I get different files but that's usually what I want anyway.