Picture noise is used to describe any form of visible disturbance in the video during playback. Commonly called dropouts, these normally result from imperfections in the tape, tracking errors, or from signal problems. They can appear as white or black lines or specks, comet tails, white bursts, or sparkles in the picture. All VCRs have a dropout compensation circuit (called the DOC) that can electronically remove, or cover up most of these annoying bugs. But it can't stop them all and some still manage to get through. Their occurrence is very dependent on the quality of the tape, the machine, or the recording. Therefore it is always desirable to use the highest quality tape media available for your recordings. The mantra is: the better the videotape the fewer the dropouts (the missing information). Sparkles can also appear when a SuperBeta recording is played back on a standard Beta machine (or vice versa). This signal mismatch (over-modulation) can be compensated for to some degree by turning the SuperBeta switch (if the VCR is so equipped) ON or OFF. It is always a good practice to play a tape in the format in which it is recorded. That is a SuperBeta recorded tape on a SuperBeta machine and a standard Beta recorded tape on a standard Beta machine. For information on how to check your videotapes for flaws, scratches, wrinkles, etc., click here. ©Misterßetamax go to homepage