I just sold my trusty XH-A1S on eBay. It went within ten minutes of the listing going live at the Buy-It-Now price of £999, which I think it is certainly worth.

Anyway, here's my question. I have a load of HDV-DV tapes shot on the XH (and a Sony Z5), as well as thousands of SD-DV tapes from the earlier cameras I used (XL1, XL2). I have a fairly effective media backup strategy comprising numerous redundant hard drives, but because most of this material is client-commissioned work I want to know that if necessary I will be able to capture from the original tapes, which are stored in a separate location.

Can anyone recommend a relatively inexpensive consumer camera that will let me capture these tapes if required?

Thanks in advance.

I believe Canon still sells the Vixia HV-40s.

Ian, yep the HV40, a new one if you can get it. And if you don't use it for months at a time,
don't forget to check its battery still has a charge.

If you migrated to a solid state cam from your A1s, then this is the classic case
of keeping a DVtape cam in good condition to play your tape library.

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/long-black-line/471188-rip-magnetic-tape.html

Recommend you buy a box of new DV tape cleaning tapes, the same brand as the brand you shot with.
In 2010, I think it was, Panasonic stopped importing their DV cleaning tapes to Oz.
Time will slip by, then one day you'll find yours are gone too.

Cheers.

Thanks Allan and Roger. I'll take a look at the HV40, although a quick glance at a couple of sources reveals that the new UK price is more than I sold the XH-A1S for!

I may be forced into second hand, or even simply waiting until (or preferably IF!) disaster strikes and I lose the two hard disk copies I maintain (one archive on a client-specific external drive, which they pay for and keep at their location, the other on the NAS archive containing all my client media, kept here). The tapes are kept off site, although not in a fireproof container.

Interesting browsing through the thread you linked to Allan. Also good advice re the cleaning tapes. Funnily enough, I have about six unused! I may save them for a future edition of Antiques Roadshow.

Cheers!

If you are looking at used for playback only, don't forget the HV30 and HV20 as well.

Yeah, that's more like it - second hand on eBay for £300 or less. Thanks all for the suggestions. To be honest, given the choice I would have preferred to keep the XH-A1S for run 'n' gun situations. It's a great camera. It's just the tape thing . . . Having enjoyed totally tapeless workflow for a while now with the Panasonic AF101 and GH2 I simply couldn't go back to it.

Ian, you probably found a solution months ago, but just in case you didn't:

How about spending the £999 you got from the sale of the XH A1s, add £300 and buy this:
Amazon.co.uk: Buying Choices: Canon XH G1s HDV PAL Camcorder with 12 month Canon UK warranty (http://amzn.to/17bLabK) - a demo model XH G1s which has not been used for filming, or so they claim..

You'd have a great camera with an allegedly unused tape deck and could still shoot tapeless through the SDI port.

Just a thought :-)

All the best,

Peter

Hi,

Does anybody know if the Vixia HV-40s will playback 25p or is it only 50i?

Thanks in advance. Regards,

HV20 would work too. I'm fairly certain they'll playback any frame rate the tapes were recorded in.