Is it possible somebody could sell an XF300 as new by resetting the hours meter, bit like winding back the odometer on a car to get more monay? Please advise thank you.

Please advise thank you.

New implies a full factory warranty. Without the warranty a solid state camera with 0 hours is possibly worse than one with 100 hours. Solid state electronics tend either to fail immediately or last nearly forever. Therefore a new camera must include a factory warranty to be better than a used camera that was well taken care of.

I'm refering to a 'secondhand' camera, not brand new. When a seller says its new but may have been reset? Can anyone explain?

When a seller says its new but may have been reset? Can anyone explain?

The only way that makes sense (to me) is if the hours were demonstration hours such as by the sales person showing the NEW camcorder to a prospective customer, or production line testing of the camcorder as part of the QC program. Kind of like the miles on the odometer of a new car from a dealer, that do not count against the new car warranty mileage.

Solid state camcorders do have wearing parts; flash recordable memory wears, iris, focus and zoom components wear, internal rechargable batteries wear, control switches and contacts.

Failures follow a notional "bath tub" curve, greatest early in life and again late in life.

I'm refering to a 'secondhand' camera, not brand new. When a seller says its new but may have been reset? Can anyone explain?

I think the menu level reset function will restore the color settings and custom functions back to factory default but leave the hours meter alone. Since the XF300 model has been out only a year or two, any XF300 could be defined as a new camera. Similarly an HXA1s purchased new today is still an old camera.

When buying second hand, it is best if you trust the seller and know the history of the camera. I recently bought a used camera on dvinfo. While I didn't know the seller, his posts told a history of how the camera was used, how it performed and his attention to its care. That camera turned out exactly as expected and I'm happy with the purchase.