I believe I bought my TRV900 in 1998... it's now mostly used as an editing deck, but aside from the internal mike dying (a common fault on those cameras) it's still working fine. A decent MiniDV camera can last a long time.

As for CCDs, yeah, they're a large part of the cost of the camera. Add in the cost of labour for replacing them and you'll be better off buying a new one in most cases. But they're unlikely to get damaged unless you stick a spike through the lens or something equally catastrophic :).

Mark, if the internal mic dies can you still plug an external mic in and have the camera record audio? Or do you have to do audio seperately and sync them in post?

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

Yeah, I just use a crappy external mike. I have the Z1 for shooting anything important, last thing I used the TRV900 for was a holiday video (the Z1 is way too heavy to lug around for three weeks :)).

Basically there's a design flaw in the TRV900 such that the mikes slowly degrade and then stop working at all. I was shooting a friend's friend's wedding when they died so I'm glad I checked before I started recording and had time to buy another mike :).

That sounds good. I was just wondering if DV cams have a short life span...something like plasma tvs which are known to die after 4-5 years lol.

and I was wondering if you run your exteral mic through the TRV900 or if you run it to a DAT and sync later.

RJSchwarz
San Diego, CA

am planning to buy a sony minidv, one ccd. although it seems expensive...any suggestions?

No, I just plug the external mike straight into the camera. I do have a DAT, but haven't used it in a long time... it's much easier to record on the camera and not have to worry about syncing up the audio.