Dropped frames on one tape only - can it be saved?

[ozymango]

Greetings, fellow babies;

Okay, I've been having very good luck with all of my video captures (VHS and Beta) of late with one single (and of course important) exception: I've got a Beta tape from 1991 that I am desperate to transfer to DVD and no matter what I do, I'm dropping frames like crazy.

My setup is:

* P4 1.6 CPU, Intel MB, 512MB RAM, Windows XP PRO SP2 (very well behaved system)
* Two 120GB drives, one with OS, other for capture (UDMA 6, no speed issues)
* Intel Smart Video III capture card, PCI, rather old but has been very stable, BrookTree 848 chipset

I've been able to capture at 720x480, 352x480, and 352x240 at 29.97fps from pretty much any tape, using VirtualDub, Huffy codec, great programs, great results, hardly any dropped frames.

BUT on this @$#! tape, which has about 4 hours of stuff I'm desperate to keep, I try capturing at any of the above resolutions, even tried 15fps frame rate, using Huffy and then not using Huffy (uncompressed) and I'm dropping like 5-15 frames a second, it's pathetic.

So of course I've read through all the forums, did the standard search on dropped frames, tweaked all my hardware and software as much as possible, and being it's just this one tape (which looks pretty good on standard TV playback, a little grainy and the occasional tracking error but nothing horrible), I'm guessing it's just an unrecoverable tape error.

Or is it? Anybody have any suggestions as to different capture programs or codecs that *might* have better results? Anybody have that one tape that gave them major headaches but they finally got it to work? And for those of you with TBCs, I've heard that TBCs can help a little with dropped frames but not always that much, and of course I don't wanna spring for a TBC if there's not a good chance it'll help.

As somebody or other once said, "I'd piss on a spark plug if I thought it'd do any good."

[Capmaster]

Ahhh, a quote from War Games

Yes, a TBC is the "only way to fly" when capturing from tape. Chances are you're getting corrupt timing on some frames and when that happens, it'll drop them. A TBC would very likely solve it for you, but they're expensive.

Do you have the option of renting a TBC for the day from a video equipment rental outfit? Portland is a big enough city to probably have several such video gear rental places

[ozymango]

Renting a TBC? I never thought of it! And yeah, I think it's definitely a possibility, there are some local houses who do equipment rentals that might be within financial reach. Time to check the yellow pages!