Re: DV vs VHS-C Reliability
welcome to the boards, its nice to see a fellow aussie here, there are a few of us but we are a bit thin on the ground. in terms of build quality the size of mini dv cameras can make them a little tempramental but no more so than their vhs-c counterparts. the main thing with transport mechanisms is that they don't like to be slightly bent. it is important to open the cover fully to allow the transport mechanism to release the tape properly, and it is also important that when loading a tape you only press on the portion of the mechanism that is marked "press" as pushing on the rest of that bar can warp the metal over time. the other big enemy of mini dv cameras is humidity and it could be that humid tapes is the problem you are experiencing, and i guess warping due to heat might be a problem. as a rule of thumb panasonic are no better or worse than any other camera on the market, in fact i tend to prefer there cheap 3ccd models to most other cameras available at the moment. but i guess it comes down to what you want to do with it and how much you can spend. if you don't edit your video much, then mini dvd cameras might be a good option or even a hard drive based camera. incidentally when i was at uni i shot a couple of documentaries that were half filmed on the then state of the art canon xl1 and half on a panasonic gs 11 and at cinema screenings of these films my professors couldn't pick the difference in the footage!! in terms of playing back your old tapes try putting them in a ziplock sanwich bag with some silica gel to remove the moisture and storing them in a cool dark place for a couple of days. in terms of head cleaners damaging the heads, there are two types of head cleaner, wet type and dry type. the wet type uses an alcohol based fluid to help clean the heads whilst the more effective dry type uses a slightly abrasive tape (which with repeated use might damage the heads) incidentally vhs-c is going to be seriously hard to get soon and even harder to repair as they have been out of production for a few years. in terms of the seemingly throw away nature of these cameras many of them are used infrequently on holidays etc. this in itself is problematic. just like a car needs to be run regularly to be maintained so a video camera preforms better with regular use. still photographers know that if a camera is not used the aperture blades, shutter blades and mirror etc can become "sticky" well it is much the same with video cameras. keep me posted as to how you go.
Simon