Advice please...

Local shop has a brand new camcorder for just under £200 and might be open to offers.

Thanks Rob.
To be honest I was thinking of spending perhaps half that as I only want it to transfer my tapes. For my next camera I plan to go solid state as I have yet to come across a very reliable tape based camcorder - but then I have had Sony!!!
David

David, Solid state for me too next time. I've had Sony and Panny and, touch wood, both have been reasonably reliable.

I was in the local TV shop enquiring about the new Panny plasmas and caught sight of this relic in a cabinet. I'm sorry it's more than you want to spend but you might want to think about this, if you bought it and transferred your material you could probably sell it again for over £100 to someone else in the same position. Otherwise, hopefully someone else around here will come up with an answer.

I can only think you have been very unlucky, then. Many of us have been using tape based systems for many years without any problems. Sony is also one of the better manufacturers out there.

Hi, I'm Kens son.;)
I know the feeling.
My trusty Hi8 has travelled many 1000's of miles with me, but is now unusable due to dirty heads/tracking problem or combination.
You could buy one 2nd hand (usual caveat re buying from strangers on ebay etc), but make sure it plays tapes back in the viewfinder cleanly, without interference - and ditto on audio.
You may have to connect it to a TV before purchase to check it's colour playback as many are b/w viewfinders.
Do your copying, then 'sell on' the camcorder.
May be a relative/neighbor has Hi8 camera you could loan for 1 or 2 tapes but 30plus may be taking the Michael.

send the camera to Digiservice for a free estimate and see how much the repair cost would be (maybe £100)

If you really have lots of tapes then buying a camcorder will be your cheapest choice, otherwise people on here do this kind of thing. I had my Hi8 stuff put on DV by Charles, and I am sure others still do that and anything you want.

The trouble is I now have masses of DV tapes and it looks like machines for them are going out of style. I am putting stuff that I have edited onto DVDs but I really don't see that as a long term solution as I find home burned DVDs less reliable than tapes.

I also return edited stuff back to DV tape thus increasing my supply of them :(

I do make multiple copies of everything on DVD (cheap) and distribute them to the family so hopefully there will always be a working copy, until DVDs fall from grace.

When VHS was king we could keep our treasured memories and favourite films for life in fancy covers knowing they could be handed down from generation to generation.

As I have said before on here, when we stopped carving things in stone and started with this flimsy paper we were on a slippery slope ;)

BobA

You really only have two options and that it to either pay someone to do a Hi8 to mini DV/dvd transfer or to purchase a new (hopefully cheap) camera.

The biggest problem with solid state in my mind which for me makes it a no go
is down to archiving and back up. I never reuse my tapes which mean i have rushes from over ten years ago still stored away (not a problem they are really small) but if it ever means i have to for whatever reason go back to them they are there and Mini Dv is cheap enough to buy new tapes each time. Also all my masters are back to tape NOT DVD if that master disc ever failed i've always got a back up.

Now to solid state, Whether its a hardrive based system or a stick two big concerns worry me. No back up of data if the solid state fails or the storgae medium you have chosen to transfer it to afterwoods fails ALL your material has gone Also DV tape is cheap but the solid state cards and HDD recorders are not, the new cards for the EX1 etc can only hold maximum of 50 mins (less than miniDV) but cost far more than the cost of a tape, you can't have a new one of those everytime you shoot. So where can you store it? it seems the only place to back up material recorded solid state is on a Hard drive or DVD
both in the long term have reliability issues.
The other thing that springs to mind are the hard drive recorders, normally for SD you need to select a format which matches you editing program (canopus or MSDV or matrox etc)
if these are stored and you change sytems this could make the resulting files unusable

This for me makes tape based recording more efficiant and reliable.

I'd be interested how other people work around the issues i have mentioned

To echo mad mardy, archiving to DVD is an oxymoron. Tape is at present a much more reliable archival system.

But how much longer will we be able to get tapes or the machines to play them?

As I have said on other threads shops do not stock High Def tape camcorders. They are still being made, but the general opinion is that this batch of Sony and Panasonic High Def tape using camcorders will be the last and how much longer will non HD DVs be sold?

BobA

There are very few DV tape based camcorders here in Norwich. The odd £200 Panny, and £500 Sony.
Perhaps retailers are reluctant to get new stock in the present climate, but there seem to be several HDD and solid state on display.

I was looking for a Canon HV30, and found an HV20 at a bargain price. I don't think the assistant knew the HV30 existed. I managed to confuse him with questions about DV in/out and mic. record level, and he found as I had done. The Internet is not always reliable when it comes to specifications. The manual revealed all!

Yes I am in outer London and I can't find a HV20 or 30 to look at. I can order one online easily enough but can't get to actually see one. I think I can still see the Sony tape based camcorder at the Sony shop in Bluewater (at least I could a few months ago) The assistant was not even aware that it (old model) was tape based and had already told me that all the High def stuff was hard drive now. The critisisms of the Canon that I have seen have all been based on it being excellent quality but "cheap feeling". I would like to judge for myself before making a decision.

BobA

I imagine that DV tapes will be reasonably easy to source for at least another 5 years. With the sheer number of camcorders around that use them, there must be a adequate global market to keep them in manufacture. Remember, not every country in the world buys the latest equipment. Watch any news reports from India and you will see dozens of Z1s and FX1s being brandished by the media throng. They are at the professional end of the local market.

I think that HD based camcorders will probably have a more limited future than tape models. The real future in the consumer market must be solid state memory storage. Look how much the cost of the devices falls every year.

Steve

Solid state in the hands of a professional is different to one in the hands of a consumer.

The consumer is fine with Solid state, plug into a pc and copy or archive to dvd.
thats not going to work for a pro
On the pro side there are tens of camera's using tapes infact there are only two that are only solid state (that i can think of)

TBH Solid state is the way to go when the workflow, efficency and economics of it come down to match tape, but until then...

I cannot agree, at least without defining the context. Panasonic have several solid state P2 cams now and Sony already have a couple and will not be far behind. If you include the hard disk cams e.g. Red etc. then the number increases further. We are all spoilt by DV tapes at a couple of quid each. Just contemplate the cost of a roll of 35mm movie film including all the subsequent processing and although the transfer and archiving may seem onerous and expensive now but in a couple of years it will disappear into the noise. The broadcasters are pushing this with their own agendas but the trickle down effect applies.

As Bob Aldis wrote i transferred his tapes to Mini-DV but if the number is 30 then your cheapest option is probally the camera mentioned,better a new one than a E-Bay special.

AHH yes i forgot about the pannys although i don't know anyone that use them

although the transfer and archiving may seem onerous and expensive now but in a couple of years it will disappear into the noise. .

I quite agree but those issues NEED to disappear before it really takes on.
If you look at the broadcasters that are still asking for SD when HD has been around a few years i'm not sure that the broadcasters really are interested in all this technology, just in descent programmes. Some may disagree with that but the evidence is there.
IMHO the BBC is a law unto itself and does not apply

Mostly, the broadcasters are interested in survival and profit, rather than any degree of long-term planning. Any broadcaster in the "National Broadcaster" slot will have to lead and be seen to be leading, but those just in there for the money will deliberately lag in technology, in order to extract every penny from their initial investments. So, 5 doesn't do HD, and only went 16:9 a short time ago.

Yes from what i have been seeing that seems to make sense.

An interesting debate.
May I suggest the next contributor starts a new thread as it's OT and debate is likely to continue.
Perhaps the thread should be 'Migration from tape'?