Problems capturing some DV tapes

Question

I am capturing lots of mini DV tapes and some High 8 tapes directly from the camera using Firewire. Over half the tapes go in fine and maybe 30-40% of the tapes stop at some point and say something about dropped frames and something about audio may not be synced with video...also when it stops sometimes 30 or 40 minutes into a tape, it has not saved up to that point any file. It does say capturing now, but once it hits this problem my capturing is wasted.
I have tried capturing this on my laptop (dual 2.33 ghz macbook pro) directly onto an external firewire 800 drive. I have also tried to capture it directly onto my RAID.
I am wondering if these tapes which are DV tapes and may not have been stored great or may have been recorded over a few times is the problem or my system.
I can capture directly using the analogue outputs on the camera and into my capture card and onto my RAID or external firewire drive no problem. It's just that when I try to capture with firewire, somehow my system is very sensitive to some of these tapes. These tapes do play fine through the DV camcorder and so capture fine analogue.
I don't see much of a difference unless I blow up a frame of video 300% and then only a little. I wonder if the capturing through firewire is an exact duplicate as opposed to analogue which is a near duplicate?
I used head cleaner on both of my camcorders yet the problem still persists. I turn off all programs and always capture on an external drive. My friend thinks it has something to do with Macs and his windows machine can capture it fine...I'd be surprised if that was it.
Anyone have any answers? Thanks-

Answer 1

I am wondering if these tapes which are DV tapes and may not have been stored great or may have been recorded over a few times is the problem or my system.
It sounds like you are getting dropped frames. This can happen especially with DV tapes that have been used several times and that may have been left in the camera or deck for some time. FCP will abort the capture when it loses TC, so if you have a frame that does not have TC on it FCP will stop and you lose anything that captured before that.
Try this: capture the tapes by logging small segments and then capturing, that way if you drop a frame you only lose a small segment.
Watch carefully and see where you drop the frame, then try logging and capturing around that frame.
I wonder if the capturing through firewire is an exact duplicate as opposed to analogue which is a near duplicate?
Firewire is simple file transfer, ones and zeros transferred over a wire. Analog capture through your Kona card involves digital to analog and analog to digital conversion. So you are right in your assumption. Firewire is the best way to go, but if you must have the missing footage then analog may be your only option. Bbeware, analog will not pass through TC , it will create new TC on your capture.
My friend thinks it has something to do with Macs and his windows machine can capture it fine...I'd be surprised if that was it.
His windows machine is not as sensitive to TC as your Mac. Whatever he is using is probably set to ignore dropped frames or does not read the TC from the tape. He also probably thinks that Vista looks nothing like OSX.
K