Mini DV Player

[wgkenney]

Is there such a thing as a mini dv player?

I currently hook and unhook my camera up to various devices around my home office to play mini dvs, pass through to convert to AVI, etc.

It would be nice to have something that I can plug the tape into and show it on my monitor or use as a pass through to capture the mini dv content for video editing.

Anything out there that you know of?

[bugster]

Try google.

I believe a few devices do exist but they are ridiculously expensive for what they are.

[JimJohnD]

If you record in standard DV, just find the cheapest miniDV camera that has passthru. You can use your higher quality camera to record and the cheap one to play back (once the data is to tape it dosn't matter what you play back on, it's just transfering data). Pass through dosn't use the optics so you should be in good shape. The price for a deticated DV deck are insane for what they are.

[wgkenney]

Ahh, I was hoping that someone had seen a need for this and put a "cheap" solution in place.

[beingfunny]

I have one of these at school to use with my student's morning news. When they do a feature with the MiniDV camera. You can use the MiniDV tape like a VHS. Saves a lot of time and wear and tear on the cameras. Not cheap though ...around $750~

http://pro.jvc.com/prof/Attributes/features.jsp?feature_id=01&tree=&itempath=&model_id=MDL101333

[wgkenney]

Yes, it looks like there are not any cheap solutions. Now that I have been directed to some of what is on the market, it appears that they are usually set up with a VHS or SVHS recorder as well and are given editing capablities, thus driving the price up.

To bad there is not just a Mini Dv player only. It looks like the best player, as stated in one of the notes above, is just a cheap mind dv camera attached to my system.

[beingfunny]

I agree, but be careful. The older Canon MiniDV cameras had questionable drive mechanisms. The reason I have this JVC player is because of the 5 Canon ZR20 camcorders I have, only 1 will rewind without eating the tape (~$180 repair job). I work in a pretty big school system (148 schools) and asked our equipment repair guy if this is common. He told me he has seen a lot of ZR10, ZR20, and ZR40 with this problem. Our buying department won't let us buy Canon camcorders any more. I have 2 Sony HC65 cameras that work great. I also bought some MiniDV rewinders to use with the Canons (they still work at recording). I know this is long winded - bottom line - look for solid drive mechanisms.

[wgkenney]

Thanks Beingfunny,

Good feedback

[troyvcd1]

I recently saw some sony minidv camcorders cheap on ebay. These were like the trv25/27 models. They have never had any drive problems but the user dropped them or something so the lens was out of wack. This I think would be the cheapest solution