Looking for a cheap, used HDV camcorder, have a question.
 

I replaced the broken Canon HV10 with the HF-S100, but still have tons of mini DV tapes in storage. I'd like import them to my computer. I've been looking for a used (and hopefully not too expensive) HV10 to do the job. I'm wondering if there's any "negative" effect if I get another brand's mini DV camcorder to do the importing.

Thanks,

If these tapes have HDV recordings on them, you will need an HDV camcorder to read them (an SD MiniDV camcorder won't read HDV material).

I tried interchanging tapes between Sony HDR - HC series and Canon HV20 without any abnormalities.

I think the only danger is if you're using one of the "special" frame rates, and not even sure if that is a problem, but straight HDV should be fairly compatible between brands - whether your tape tracking will be consistent is another matter altogether...

I'm not sure that my comment is going to make you feel better, but here it goes. I have never had a problem taking a DV format tape from one camera and playing it back in another. I have Canon, Panny and Sony. No worries, but that's SD DV.

I don't have a lot of experience with HDV except between Canon's XH-A1, HV10 & HV30. No issues. I seem to recollect that I can play 24f from the A1 on the HV10, but that was a while ago so the memory might be faulty. (For those of you just tuning in, I'm very old.)

I have read of several issues when crossing manufacturers but I've never put together any discernible pattern of issues. You might just have to do a trial an error deal if you want to get away from Canon. I would think there'd be a fair number of HV10s out there since the HV20/30/40 is a much more usable product. However, my HV10 went back to repair an internal power supply under warranty and has started to "park" the lens assembly in the powered off position after shooting for prolonged locked-off shooting so it may become my dedicated xfer deck soon. You might want to steer clear of the HV10.

Don't know if any of this helps, but it is more grist for the mill.

HDV shot with an HV10, should be playable in any other HDV camcorder (aside from JVC's 720p HDV camcorders). The HV10 only records vanilla 1080i60 HDV, if I'm not mistaken.

That sounds right.

I have a couple of DV tapes shot with a Canon GL2; I tried capturing with a Sony camcorder and the video was fine but the audio dropped out here and there. I had to re-capture those tapes with the Canon I shot them with.

Just FYI...