Hi,

I recently received a batch of NTSC Betacam SP Tapes that I have been trying to capture using a Sony DVW-A500 through a Blackmagicdesign UltraStudio HD Mini. I have another Betacam machine (the DVW-A500P) that captures PAL tapes and this setup works fine.

I tried to digitise the new batch of tapes with the NTSC machine, and noticed that after I captured the first tape, the second one started to capture and then bugged out and went black. Then, when I put the first tape back in, it also bugs out and has black lines all over the capture. I then sent off the machine to be repaired to hopefully fix the issue, and upon return did the same sequence of tapes, and the exact same issue cropped up again. The second tape bugged out, went black, and the first tape was unable to be captured properly.

I made a video with the captures to show you what the results are of capturing the tape. The first section is the live capture of the second tape going bad, then a selection of captures showing the different visual errors that occur on capture, and the final section is the first recording of the first tape which has no issues (very shortly before putting the second tape in): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc6zxgyr98E

On the front of the machine, the channel condition is mostly red, and flashes to green / orange during some shot changes, and the VITC light sometimes flashes repeatedly when it manages to get some video signal through. I am assuming that I have a bad tape that I need to avoid like the plague, but is there anything I can do to help get the machine back to capturing?