Converting Beta tapes - parts of it missing

[Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson]

Hello!
I'm converting old Beta tapes to digital. I'm using Canopus ADVC-55 converter and my iMac. I've tried both iMovie and Final Cut Pro X. The picture is fine - the sound is fine. I'm using FireWire cabel, with FW 400 in the Canopus and FW 800 into the coumputer. The tapes are up to 3 hours long. I have 500 GB space on my Hard disk. I have recorded the same tape 4 times. When done so I have from 15. minutes up to 60 minutes on the Harddrive - parts are missing. Some times I have the first 14 minutes and the last 15 minutes of the tape. I even have the start, the middle and the end. The capturing window says: "Capturing" all the time while recording. Any suggestions?

[jman98]

I will ask a moderator to move this to the Mac forum. You absolutely have to have our Mac experts help you with this. Mac forum posts have a special symbol that they look for and your subject doesn't indicate that this is a Mac problem, so they may not look at it until it's moved.

[Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson]

Thank you - I will do so.

[Brainiac]

One of the first things you will probably be asked is if you are capturing to your system drive.

Brainiac

[Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson]

Yes, I'm doning so - should I use external drive?

[Brainiac]

I am a PC guy with nominal mac experience, but I am relatively sure that for a mac as well, you should NOT capture to the system drive. It only invites problems because the system drive is busy doing other things and that can lead to capture issues.

The mac users can address this further. I am sure they can assist you.

Brainiac

[Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson]

Thank you for your help. I'm now trying another computer. I did try external drive but it did not help. I have posted it to the mac forum.

[DB83]

To clarify.

When you say the capture is missing do you mean, for example, that you recorded 3 hours but you ended up with less or you actually did record 3 hours but part of that capture has no picture and sound. In my eyes you were not clear.

You can capture to your system drive but it is harder. Your OS will always be trying to read and write temp stuff to the drive and that might well interfere with the capture process.

You should close down any non-essential background programs. Disconnect from the internet. Close down any AV (yeah I know that many Mac users do not need this )

Other than use an external drive if you can partition your main drive and then capture to the non-OS partition.

[Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson]

Thank you for your help. I will try this. The actual part of the video is missing. My last attempt gave me 5 minutes of video. Tape was still going, the program said "capturing" and everything seemed to be normal. Now it's runnig and we will see.

[Bjarki Sveinbjörnsson]

I think I have solved the problem. After importing to OS 10.9.5 on two different computers, without luck, I turned to one with 10.9.4. Here things goes great.

Thank you all for your help.