I recently shot 2 tapes at an event, and during capture to the PC a large number of random dropped frames were noted. Both tapes were Sony standard grade (blue shrinkwrap 3-pack). The frame drops occurred at nearly the same areas of both tapes, no idea why. About halfway through 3/4 of the way into the tape brief dropouts of between several frames to several seconds were showing up. The video/audio simply freezes, no blocking, then resumes. This showed up during steady-run taping, not at the beginning or end of a take.

Is there any way to tell during recording, if dropouts are happening, or are you simply trusting that it won't happen? I ran the headcleaner once after this, and running a trial record straight thru another Sony cassette and will check it. Visual of the heads looks clean, but can you tell by eye, and is there a better way to maintain them than the head cleaner cassette? They're abrasive I understand, not real good, but the only way.

You can't really eyeball microscopic debris that could cause a headclog. Apart from using a head cleaning tape, the only other (& best) way would be to manually clean the heads, which should be left to a professional unless you know how to do it yourself properly.

Bill

I recently shot 2 tapes at an event, and during capture to the PC a large number of random dropped frames were noted. .

Connect your camera to your TV and then playback. If no problems then it is an issue with your capture -PC/Mac.

Cheers,
Robert

Were you recording over previously used DV tapes?