just wanted to mention...... the $%# hardest part

[Muffyn]

like many of you, I wanted to record my old home videos to dvd before they turned to dust ( like a scene from "the time machine").(oh, recorder is the panasonic dmr-e80)

now VHS is going to be relatively easy.. LOTS of VHS machines around..... now Beta , on the other hand... eegads... I have 200+ beta tapes to go through, & THREE beta recorders,,, none of which is working properly..(well, what did I expect from not using any for over 8 years)... in #1 the thing whirls & ejects etc, but I cannot get the thing 'clean' enough to see the dang picture! the 2nd one , well, it lets you put IN the tape but won't play it.... now the 3rd one, after hitting all the dang buttons enough times, finally will play,, picture relatively ok, problem is load & eject.... won't budge, so I have to turn the wheels.. (ok, cross fingers it holds up till I am done.)
the 1st tape I tried was 16 years old,, not too bad, considering the age.. at least you could make out people(VBG),, the next tape, was pretty battle damaged,, LOTS of noise lines I couldn't tweak out,, but recorded it anyway..(too bad I THOUGHT there was going to be 4 hours on it, so recorded it in XP, thinking I would divide it up into 1 hr segments, but came in at 2hr 14 min, I edited out 15 min garbage & then dubbed it all to a dvd,, dang it couldn't GO high speed,,, *pout*. hard part will be determining beforehand how long these videos are,, since I do NOT want to spend anymore time using the beta machine than I have to, with chance of messing up the tape.)

also, I once considered NOT buying the one with the hard drive,, wow what a mistake THAT would have been!!!

this is gonna be an interesting adventure...........
: )

[Bob W]

Look on eBay there are like 22 Beta recorders up for bid and cheap.

[Muffyn]

Look on eBay there are like 22 Beta recorders up for bid and cheap.

I had been watching them for a bit.... but several said "as is" & others said make sure you clean 1st! (not cost effective). I had a feeling from looking at MY 3 here, I would be buying the same trouble.
the ones that looked , ok, sold for over $80.,, not sure I wanted to buy one at that price,,, ( & still a crapshoot). but if mine did die,, I'd have no choice...

[piano632]

For Betamax advice, try:

http://pages.prodigy.net/handel31/ (This is the Betamax guru)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/betamax

I got about 200 Beta tapes too, but luckily both my machines are working. I managed to find a brilliant local guy to repair mine when I needed it. I know it's a longshot, but ask around your area for repair people (you never know).