Not that my limited use of either my XL-1 or PDX-10 would ever tax the the drive mechanisms, but I just was contemplating buying a playback deck to save the wear and tear on the transports. I have also read here and elsewhere of people buying cheap DV camcorders for this job. What's the scoop, oh knowledgeble ones? If I play back tape recorded with an XL-1 on a crappy little ZR-50 (or similar), will there be any difference from playing it back on the XL-1 or a playback deck? That would be considerably cheaper than the deck options I have seen.

No. the picture quality will not be efffected if played back on a cheap dv camera.

Sorry, Jeff, no answers. I confess I'm replying here to get notification when the great answers start pouring in!

We bought a JVC deck that didn't work out--even playback to a monitor looked bad. Other people's tapes looked good, so fingers are pointing to our cameras as the culprits, but can two of them have misalignments?

The only deck that played our tapes okay was a Sony (didn't catch a model). I can't afford $2000.

Thanks for letting me tag along.

Both my friends XL-1S and my DVX100 footage play fine out of the cheapo Sharp Viewcam mini-DV camera. I'm going to pick one up for use as a deck- the best part...it's only $350.

Do a search and read some of my posts on error correction. Tape path alignment, or misalignment can be the culprit. If many tapes play back OK, then you're correct in suspecting your camera as the cause of the poor quality playback. A camera can't be out of align with itself, only other playback devices.

Lorinda, I am not a moderator, nor do I play one on TV, and you most certainly are welcome to join this thread, but I thought I would point something out to you. At the end of each thread page there is a button you can hit to get e-mails about new posts in a thread, without actually posting to the thread.

Makes it easy to keep track of topics in which you have an interest.

Jeff Farris: By golly, there IS a button down there! Sorry for the intrusion, and I hope my question didn't throw this thread too far off-topic.

Jeff Donald: I'll search for the posts you suggested (I do know about THAT button). Thanks so much.

<<<-- Originally posted by Lorinda ... Sorry for the intrusion, and I hope my question didn't throw this thread too far off-topic... -->>>

No intrusion. Nothing to be sorry for, I just thought you might like to know for the next time something you want to keep track of comes up.

I would suspect that the cheaper camcorders would have lower quality analog output circuitry. Some TVs (Mitsubishi) have
a Firewire input.

The D/A and A/D convertors are generally of lower quality. But for straight digital the quality of the playback camera is not limiting factor.

Thanks, Jeff. That is what I wanted to hear. eBay, here I come ;^)

a good deck is mostly a matter of convenience. The forward and rewind are faster and they are made for the job. A camera is made to play and record and the forward and rewind are slow to engage and their action is slower than a deck. The resulting video, however, is the same. There is also less chance that a deck will eat a tape since the mechanism is made more robustly. There are decks under $1000 so I'm finally in the process of getting one myself.