Are HDR-FX1 transports really junk?
 

I have just had the tape transport mechanism replaced on my HDR-FX1 for the second time. The first one failed when the camera was about a year and 3 months old. This one lasted from Oct 2006 until Feb 2009. It is a $350.00 repair for the part and the technician time.

My camera gets moderate use with shooting and uploading the video into the computer. If I was shooting every day my guess is the transport wouldn't last a year.

Anybody else with similar experience?

The motor(s) die in the unit. The repair facility said that rewinding tapes is the culprit. They suggested getting a tape rewinder.

Can anybody suggest a good one to get. I am in the Chicago metro area so getting one should be easy. I found several on line. Who has the good one?

If you own a minidv or dvcam deck , use that to rewind , or another mini dv camera .

you can buy a Canon HV20 for about $400 these days. I would go that route.

I've had mine for a good 3 years, I use it as a deck and shoot with it a lot. I'm actually afraid of breaking it from over use, because I REALLY use it a lot. But I haven't had any problems at all.

Michael - I wrote a "first impression" post when I bought my zbaby about 3 years ago - the only downside I noticed , and right off the bat was that the tape mechanism was trash , and that's in the z1. It looked more flimsy than some cheap minidv cameras I own. So I always rewind using my dvcam deck but any cheap minidv camera will do the job . It doesn't have to be hdv to rewind. I was under the assumption that you might already have a mini dv camera around but if not check out

RE98 Digital Concepts Mini DV Video Tape Rewinder for Digital Camcorder Cassettes

One of the problems is not getting in a hurry with it. More than once I have had to stop myself from trying to force close the tape door, before the tape carriage has completely retracted.

Yeh , you always have to let them go thru their little "routine" , but they're still flimsy for a semi-pro camera. I also have a sony dsr-pd100a which has a much more robust tape mechanism , but in all fairness , I also used my deck as much as possible with it also. Well we're almost thru the tape age anyway so this problem won't be cropping up too much longer.

That thing is cheap as dirt, does it only rewind, and can you see the timecode on it somehow?