How to prevent static building up in Sony SL-HF950 Betamax recorder?

[davidvankemenade]

Hi everyone,

I am transferring old Betamax tapes (1981-1989). I have noticed a build-up of static electricity while playing back the oldest tapes, leading to excessive bullet noise. Newer tapes don't seem to have this problem. At the beginning of a tape, little bullet noise is visible. As the tape progresses, bullet noise increases.

I have read this is a known issue in the SL-HF950: http://www.palsite.com/950tech.html#static. Sony supplied an earth kit to solve this issue, but it's no longer available. Does anyone have any further information about this so that I can replicate this solution?

As an alternative, would it help to put old tape into a new cassette housing? Newer Betamax tapes from Sony are grey rather than black. Does this help to avoid static build-up?

Many thanks in advance for any help!

Thanks,
David

[lordsmurf]

I doubt changing the cassette housing would do much.

Can we get a screen capture of what you mean by "bullet noise"?

It almost sounds like a "comet" issue (magnetic dropouts). If so, then they may not be correctable. However, there are several methods for restoration, to remove most/all of the dropouts. This has been discussed many times on the forum, especially in 2013-2014.

[davidvankemenade]

Hi lordsmurf, thanks for your reply. Sorry for following up so late.

Below is a screen capture of the noise:



The left-hand side is a frame from the first time I did a capture. I played back the first 2 minutes of this time a few times consecutively. On the right-hand side you see the same frame from the fourth capture. I believe the noise gets worse with time.

I've also posted a video of the capture with the SL-HF950 here.

For comparison, I've posted a video of the same segment captured with an SL-F35.

It seems the white noise areas in the SL-HF950 capture are not affected in the SL-F35 capture. The SL-F35 instead introduces black stripes at high-contrast transitions.

What should I do to play back these tapes with minimal noise?

[NJRoadfan]

Take a look here: http://www.mrbetamax.com/GroundingRepair.htm

Clicking on the photo shows the "repair kit". Basically grounds the whole drum assembly.