I'm finding repair of electronics to be getting harder to get done and more expensive at times than replacing the product. It's a cost/performance exercise.
The short list I see of the Sony Digital8 camcorders appears to be the TRV280, TRV285 and TRV460. Maybe there are others but in your case the TRY460 may be the right model since you'll be able to recycle your battery and other items.
This time you only need to be more careful.
Bob
Warning: The following post is by someone with very scant technical knowledge about camcorders, so please bear with me if I don't get the terminology/technology quite right.
We are on our second digital 8 camcorder. We keep sticking with this format in order to be able to play back our tapes, which if I understand correctly, can only be played back if you keep getting this kind of camcorder. For the record, pretty much our entire lives are on this type of film. My dh takes video of everything, we rarely use still camera.
Our first camcorder, (Hitachi VM-D965LA), which also took still shots, I believe, worked great, until one of our daughters (toddler at the time) did something to it, or dropped it - somehow messed it up. Afterwards, it would only play back all our film in b&w, not color, and repair estimates were prohibitive.
Our second camcorder is a Sony DCR-TRV460 which I researched like crazy on the internet to settle on - bought for its good reviews, but primarily to play that digital 8 film. It also has a memory stick for taking still shots. All was well until my dh dropped the camera about a month ago. Now, when playing back, and I think recording, there is a messed-up picture.
We have not gotten a repair estimate yet. We are thinking of buying yet another digital 8 camcorder. I know there is some way to transfer these tapes to computer or something to that effect (sorry for my very limited understanding of all of this) but it seems like it's very time-consuming and we must have about 50-75 of these tapes from all the last 8 or so years (approximately?).
At this point, we seem to be trapped in the digital 8 camcorder conundrum: If we ever hope to finally transfer these tapes into a more up-to-date format, don't we need a properly working camera (as in, color playback or "picture not messed up" playback) capability in order to do this successfully?
Do we: a) Have any way out of this domino effect; b) Try to get the Sony fixed, regardless of cost; c) Buy yet another digital 8 camcorder; or d) None of the above?
Thanks in advance for any/all feedback and advice.
Cheers,
fifidanon

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