My Betamax video tapes go blank while playing?
 

A few of my Beta videotapes go blank with no sound after i put them in my deck. Not all of my tapes do this. I have 3 so far that have. I put the tape in the player and it will play for a few seconds, then it goes blank. When i hit pause or fast forward or rewind, i see the picture. Then it will play for a few minutes when i restart it, and go blank again. Yes the tapes are old, but it does not happen to all of them. they are beta tapes, and i am burning them off to DVD I have a Sony Betamax videodeck.

Does the tape counter stop when this happens (assuming your deck has a real time counter in hh:mm:ss)? Try cleaning the "ACE Assembly". This is the head that reads the control track and linear audio tracks on the tape.

http://www.mrbetamax.com/CleaningACE.htm

yes it has a counter and no it does not stop. i will try and clean the ACE.
Thank you