diff --git a/src/lerobot/datasets/lerobot_dataset.py b/src/lerobot/datasets/lerobot_dataset.py
index 83d452a44..8fa4f200b 100644
--- a/src/lerobot/datasets/lerobot_dataset.py
+++ b/src/lerobot/datasets/lerobot_dataset.py
@@ -747,7 +747,7 @@ class LeRobotDataset(torch.utils.data.Dataset):
             # Check if cached dataset contains all requested episodes
             if not self._check_cached_episodes_sufficient():
                 raise FileNotFoundError("Cached dataset doesn't contain all requested episodes")
-        except (AssertionError, FileNotFoundError, NotADirectoryError):
+        except (FileNotFoundError, NotADirectoryError):
             if is_valid_version(self.revision):
                 self.revision = get_safe_version(self.repo_id, self.revision)
             self.download(download_videos)
diff --git a/src/lerobot/datasets/video_utils.py b/src/lerobot/datasets/video_utils.py
index acc24a9e0..8c8494b87 100644
--- a/src/lerobot/datasets/video_utils.py
+++ b/src/lerobot/datasets/video_utils.py
@@ -227,16 +227,17 @@ def decode_video_frames_torchvision(
     min_, argmin_ = dist.min(1)
 
     is_within_tol = min_ < tolerance_s
-    assert is_within_tol.all(), (
-        f"One or several query timestamps unexpectedly violate the tolerance ({min_[~is_within_tol]} > {tolerance_s=})."
-        "It means that the closest frame that can be loaded from the video is too far away in time."
-        "This might be due to synchronization issues with timestamps during data collection."
-        "To be safe, we advise to ignore this item during training."
-        f"\nqueried timestamps: {query_ts}"
-        f"\nloaded timestamps: {loaded_ts}"
-        f"\nvideo: {video_path}"
-        f"\nbackend: {backend}"
-    )
+    if not is_within_tol.all():
+        raise FrameTimestampError(
+            f"One or several query timestamps unexpectedly violate the tolerance ({min_[~is_within_tol]} > {tolerance_s=})."
+            " It means that the closest frame that can be loaded from the video is too far away in time."
+            " This might be due to synchronization issues with timestamps during data collection."
+            " To be safe, we advise to ignore this item during training."
+            f"\nqueried timestamps: {query_ts}"
+            f"\nloaded timestamps: {loaded_ts}"
+            f"\nvideo: {video_path}"
+            f"\nbackend: {backend}"
+        )
 
     # get closest frames to the query timestamps
     closest_frames = torch.stack([loaded_frames[idx] for idx in argmin_])
@@ -248,7 +249,11 @@ def decode_video_frames_torchvision(
     # convert to the pytorch format which is float32 in [0,1] range (and channel first)
     closest_frames = closest_frames.type(torch.float32) / 255
 
-    assert len(timestamps) == len(closest_frames)
+    if len(timestamps) != len(closest_frames):
+        raise FrameTimestampError(
+            f"Number of retrieved frames ({len(closest_frames)}) does not match "
+            f"number of queried timestamps ({len(timestamps)})"
+        )
     return closest_frames
 
 
@@ -353,15 +358,16 @@ def decode_video_frames_torchcodec(
     min_, argmin_ = dist.min(1)
 
     is_within_tol = min_ < tolerance_s
-    assert is_within_tol.all(), (
-        f"One or several query timestamps unexpectedly violate the tolerance ({min_[~is_within_tol]} > {tolerance_s=})."
-        "It means that the closest frame that can be loaded from the video is too far away in time."
-        "This might be due to synchronization issues with timestamps during data collection."
-        "To be safe, we advise to ignore this item during training."
-        f"\nqueried timestamps: {query_ts}"
-        f"\nloaded timestamps: {loaded_ts}"
-        f"\nvideo: {video_path}"
-    )
+    if not is_within_tol.all():
+        raise FrameTimestampError(
+            f"One or several query timestamps unexpectedly violate the tolerance ({min_[~is_within_tol]} > {tolerance_s=})."
+            " It means that the closest frame that can be loaded from the video is too far away in time."
+            " This might be due to synchronization issues with timestamps during data collection."
+            " To be safe, we advise to ignore this item during training."
+            f"\nqueried timestamps: {query_ts}"
+            f"\nloaded timestamps: {loaded_ts}"
+            f"\nvideo: {video_path}"
+        )
 
     # get closest frames to the query timestamps
     closest_frames = torch.stack([loaded_frames[idx] for idx in argmin_])