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General discussion

My Canon ZR30MC mangles my tapes after only 30 hours of use!

Aug 20, 2004 6:05AM PDT

I have made a total of 15 tapes of my kids. Being busy parents, we never have time to watch them, and have maybe seen a total of 5 of the tapes. Total time operated in this period (whether recording or playing) was about 30 hours. Last night we decided to rewind some of the more "recent" (taken in the last 6 months) tapes, and 4 out of 4 tapes we tried to rewind would get stuck in the middle of the rewind and the tape would get mangled up. Now I have 4 destroyed tapes, no way to see them (except get them repaired and buy a new camcorder), and Canon said no way under any circumstances they would help in any way because it is out of warranty, even if I had not used it at all. I have written the president of Canon USA and will never buy any Canon product ever again, if they are going to produce such crappy quality product and not going to stand behind it when it has such a gross malfunction.

You might think that it is a good value, but I would have gladly paid more for something reliable (as I THOUGHT Canon was), after all, the whole reason you go to digital format is to preserve your memories, not destroy them.

Has anybody ever seen any problem like this with any miniDV camcorder? Your help is much appreciated.

Discussion is locked

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Re: My Canon ZR30MC mangles my tapes after only 30 hours of
Aug 20, 2004 6:23AM PDT

Yes. One or more of the shafts or wheels can pickup some "gunk" and need cleaning. All tape units I've seen have this issue so you can lump all tape based units into the "gross" problem list of makers.

What many do is to take the unit in to be serviced, but in today's world, service is a forgotten "service." Maybe you can find a cleaning kit.

Bob

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My experience was not the same, but I did lose the video.
Aug 20, 2004 10:58AM PDT

I picked up some Panasonic tape thinking they were a good brand. The first tape caused the camera to report a full tape after about one minute. The second recorded, but when I listened later the audio volume was so low that it took a fire engine siren about 20 feet away to hear anything. Maxell tapes, both before and after, have worked flawlessly.

Bottom line: could be bad tape. Canon certainly makes some terrific equipment so I would not be so quick to write them off.

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Re: My experience was not the same, but I did lose the video
Aug 20, 2004 4:08PM PDT

Thanks for your reply. All my tapes are Maxell. I will try giving it a cleaning, but I still don't dare put my tapes in it.

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Re: My Canon ZR30MC mangles my tapes after only 30 hours of
Sep 2, 2004 8:20AM PDT

Three times in two years I had to send my Canon Optura 100 MC back for the same repair because the "Remove Cassette Immediately" warning came up. Out of the box new they fixed it rather than replace it the first time. I was told by the service manager that could be expected due to my estimate of 1700 minuts of recording in two years (17 mini dv cassettes). Make that 8 cassettes since the last repair a year ago. Now they make me pay $300.00 in repair service fees on top of the $40.00 shipping fees that I have incurred three times, along with prime time phone calls across the country to headquarters where they do not offer a toll free phone number and often leave you on hold for long periods of time. I am furious that they are charging me to repair this camera even after admitting that it was obvious it had been handled with care. The fact that it was out of warranty and that I had been recording more video than the average person (8 mini DV cassettes in the past year) I could expect these sorts of things to happen. This from Henry Dushayna the Customer Service Manager at Canon Headquarters.

The Optura has been extremely unreliable in my experience. What's worse though is the lack of accountability by Canon's Customer Service Department. My multimedia business is through with Canon products.

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Anyone had problems with Canon customer service?
Sep 3, 2004 3:59AM PDT

I am looking for some support from anyone who has had a similar problem with their Canon camcorders and felt they were treated unjustly by Canon's Customer Service Department. I will be putting together a package to sent to Canon's head office and would like to include any testimonials pertaining to similar experiences.

Thank You.

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Re: Anyone had problems with Canon customer service?
Sep 11, 2004 7:58AM PDT

Dear sgotwalks ,

I have had a very similar experience and I was furious. I got the exact same message on 4 tapes, which got mangled. I wrote a letter to Kinya Uchida, President of Canon of America. I got a call back from one of his staff named Jo, and she said that they will send me a shipping label to ship my camcorder, but I would still be responsible for any repairs they find. This was 3 weeks ago, and I never even got the shipping label.

I refuse to spend any siginificant sum of money on repairing this. Instead, I would like to know what is a reasonable company if one exists, buy from them, and send Canon the receipt, as well as a digital picture of my ZR30 in the garbage where it belongs. If all companies are like this, then it probably makes sense to buy a used super 8, because it is more reliable! I have 30 year old movies that I can still see, whereas 10 out of the 15 tapes I made with my $800 Canon digital camcorder never even got viewed once (4 of them got mangled as I said.)

Please feel free to add my testimonial to your package, they should be ashamed of themselves for this daylight robbery and treating customers like idiots. We should sue them.


Thanks,

home_movie_man

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Canon Elura problems
Apr 2, 2005 8:57AM PST

I just saw your 6-month old post at CNET. I have posted a new discussion on this forum and i also have a web-site set up that you may be interested in viewing. It is called "Canon'Remove Cassette' Action" and the URL is here:

http://mysite.verizon.net/resohb20/

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Re: My Canon ZR30MC mangles my tapes after only 30 hours of
Nov 10, 2004 5:59AM PST

I had the same problem with my ZR-30MC Canon. It ate my daughters 1st birthday tape when I went to rewind it. I was extremely unhappy when this happened. I will have send this tape in to be professionally repaired. I nervously tried another tape and it did the same thing. Luckly I was able to salvage the second tape.

I called Canon "Customer Support" for advice. I didn't get much help, other than them suggesting I send it into be repaired and have to pay for it. I did suggest that I may try a head cleaner tape if one was available. Of course this was not a cheap purchase when I found one. However, this did help my situation for the mean time. Before each use I am going to run the head cleaner just to be safe.

Hope this helps anyone else.

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You are not alone-help make Canon accountable
Apr 2, 2005 9:03AM PST

I have posted a new discussion on this forum dealing with this same issue involving Canon's tape transport system (or what they try to pass off for a transport system). I have also created a website called "Canon 'Remove Cassette' Action" where I am trying to gather names of affected owners with interest in pursuing possible legal action on behalf of the class of affected owners. Here is the URL:

http://mysite.verizon.net/resohb20/

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Can I ask?
Apr 2, 2005 9:09AM PST

Little known to many owners is that camcorders are not maintenance free. How often did you clean the rollers and such in this camcorder?

Bob