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Problems Capturing 8mm in FCP with Sony EV-A50 through ADVC110
A client of mine has me archiving his old 8mm videos of his daughter from 1992 to DVD as well as a Quicktime backup for later video editing.
The tape plays fine for a few minutes and then lines start to appear, and the picture quickly breaks up.
I have found that ejecting the tape, blowing air into the EV-A50’s (8mm deck), door, and reinserting the tape will buy me another two minutes of clean captures before the picture begins breaking up again.
I had also first tried just ejecting and reinserting the tape, but the breakup continued as before, without even the two minute respite.
Obviously, I suspected there might be dirt in the mechanism, and ran 8mm tape cleaners, which do nothing to change the routine I mentioned above, (getting two minutes at a time.)
I also opened up the EV-A50 to have a look inside, and it is crystal clean. In fact, I have no idea why the air spray through the door even does anything, as there is no dirt or dust to dislodge.
My client has about thrity hours of 8mm tape to transfer, and as you can imagine, there is no (reasonable) way I can do this two minutes at a time.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what I can do here, to troubleshoot this?
BTW, the EV-A50 tracking controls also are of no help.
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6 Replies
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I could be a problem with how the tapes were stored. If they collected moisture etc.
Try a tape that you know has something good on it and see if the problem persist.
Be sure to do a head cleaning before just in case your clients tapes left residual gunk on the heads.The other alternative is to try another deck and see if it is compatable.
Drew -
I had this happen in the same situation, but it turned out to be only one of the 20 tapes had the problem.
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Thanks for the responses.
The tapes themselves, look like they are in pretty good shape. I have run an 8mm head cleaner several times, and it seems to make no difference.
I guess if the tapes collected moisture, there might be a way for a layman, such as myself to dry them out?
As I have no equipment for that purpose, do you think it would be dangerous to put them near a dry heat radiator, or near an oven at low temp?
I had to step out and will try some of the other tapes as soon as I get the chance. If it’s only one or two of them, I could get through the 2 minute at a time, capturing deal.
What gets me, is what good does the air spray do, if there is nothing in there to spray out? Why does it help, when simply ejecting and reinserting the tape results in the breaking up?
It is so weird.But, I have had good results with the Sony Player before, and like I said it’s immaculate inside.
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One option is to get a ziplock bag, put the tapes in the bag along with desiccant pouches for a couple of days. (the little bags that say “do not eat” that come with electronics) You can find them in photo or camera shops. This will remove the moisture but if the tapes were stored near a kitchen or in a room where someone smoked there could be other residue problems.
Hope this helps,
DrewChaos is the beginning of everything.
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Thanks for that good advice!
Cheers.
Richard -
Maybe it’s a capacitor in your deck.
Are you sure it’s 8MM and not Hi-8?
Does he still have the original camera they were recorded on? If so try using his camera for the deck.
Digital 8 cameras will play back 8mm/Hi-8 analog tapes very well unless they were recorded in LP mode. Not sure about your deck but my svo9800 doesn’t do LP nor does my Digital 8. I keep an old hi8 handicam around just for this type of stuff.
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