Can long AC power ups damage cam?
 

I use a Sony PC-110 as my deck for FCP and was wondering if long powered on hours using the AC adapter could damage the camera in any way (heat build up??) as i would also like to use it as a converter to view the FCP output on a tv while editing for several hours a day.

I haven't noticed my 110 getting hot although I haven't run it too often as the deck on my NLE since I have a DSR-20 and my editing systems have analog video out.

Used as the feeder transport for your NLE, if you edit a lot, I'd expect it to need repairs fairly soon as compared to a deck designed for that activity. It is just too small to have a rugged transport.

Certainly the camera was not made to run (the tape transport) all the time (particularly in shuttle mode) although Sony certainly has to expect the camera to accidentally be left on with the AC adapter attached.

Sony does not publish the MTBF values on its amateur cameras but I'd guess that it is surprisingly low since most are used a few times and then relegated to the shelf.

Still, solid state electronics are surprisingly long-lived . . . usually the power supplies die.

I'd probably want to have the camera plugged into a surge-protector or even a UPS just for the belt and suspenders aspect of the protection.

Mike
thanks for the reply.I probably should have explained my set up a little better in the first post. I capture full tapes or whatever i have recorded into FCP then use the media manager to discard the footage i dont need after chopping it up so the PC-110 basically plays the tape one time thru without any shuttles.so the transport isnt used all that hard.just saves on hooking the VX2k up to the computer most of the time since i do the majority of my shooting with it.i usually output to DVD so im not even using the cam for recording final edits and the tape would be left out when using the pass thru for DA conversion.

It is unlikely that that method of application will prematurely age the camera. It doesn't seem to get even warm after hours of power-on.

I like the one-pass media manager. I hope my eding software upgrade shows up soon and has that particular feature this time around.