Professional transfer of beta to DVD = Yuck!!

[cz9h3d]

Here's one for you! As a surprise for my wife, I got hold of the original beta tape of her highschool musical performance (20 year old tape). Rather than "dink around" myself in finding a betamax machine to borrow and pulling the data into my computer and making a DVD, I actually took it to a local video transfer shop.

They turned it around in one day for me! But - the disks don't work! They are single layer DVD-R's. I don't know what equipment they used, but it was hardware based (i.e. feed the tape data, out pops a DVD!).

I can get "sporadic" playback on my PC using PowerDVD. I keep getting "Cyclic Redundancy Check" errors in DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter (and other programs) as I attempted to pull the data and make a useful disk. Also won't play on my standalone Apex player that has always played everything I throw at it (won't even start playing the disk).

Of course I spent $58 to get to this point! Oh yea, the video I can see looks like total crap! Should I expect a 20yo beta tape to be so bad? I wonder if they even FF/RW to ensure the tape was tight?

Argh!!! Now I have to go argue with this shop tomorrow!

Any suggestions???

[pijetro]

Nothing to argue....Get your money back!!
the cz9 in your username should get their attention...

Too bad you had to go through that..
As far as the Cyclic redundancy goes, did you check the disk for scratches??

[cz9h3d]

CZ9? hmmm....I don't get it (as it means absolutely nothing!)

No scratches on the disks (there are two of them!). They "squeezed" 2 hours onto the first single layer. As it was from the beta tape, I didn't think it would matter much to crank up the compression a little bit (which is their norm).

It just seems wierd that they don't play at all. They have to be making a ton of DVDs for people.

[jagabo]

CRC errors mean the computer can't even read the disk properly. Bad media, bad burn, scratches, whatever.

[Marvingj]

The Company you dealt with uses CHEAP DVD MEDIA...You could do it cheaper. Buy a good Beta deck from Ebay & buy a Pioneer DVD Recorder & Good Media on your own. Save Money all around Plus you can resale the Beta Vcr & DVD recorder on Ebay!!

[cz9h3d]

Okay.....I just got the wife out of the house for a few, and tested these DVD's on my newest DVD player......and they work!!

If anything, that pisses me off a little more. Now I have crappy quality video that I can't even make a copy of!!

I think I am going to get hold of a betamax machine. I've got a friend who has one (although the crappy DVD's are getting wrapped up for Christmas!). I'm not sure what (if anything) I can do regarding the video quality, but I'm sure I can research 'till I'm blue in this forum!

[kicko]

I would make your own transfer from your friends betamax and then go back to the store with both and show those dummies their quality bites and anyone with 2 machines and a cable can make a better copy.

[lordsmurf]

They sound like hacks, not pros.

[Savant]

I can get "sporadic" playback on my PC using PowerDVD. I keep getting "Cyclic Redundancy Check" errors in DVD Shrink or DVD Decrypter (and other programs) as I attempted to pull the data and make a useful disk.
...
Any suggestions???

Since the disc was made in a process WITHOUT copy protection, you are only making life tougher for yourself by using DVDShrink and such. No copy protetcion means you should be able to just copy the files from the DVD (using Windows explorer) to a temporary folder and then burn the files using your burning program of choice.

Try that and see if that gets around this problem you are having...

Regards,

Savant