DO NOT buy the HVX200A - Here's why

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Xerces77

New member
Headphone jack/IEEE 1394 ports will fail on this camera, costing $$$ of dollars to repair, sometimes days after its brief 1 year warranty expiration.

I had not done thorough enough research and only discovered its lack of a decent warranty after my purchase. I wanted to return but it was too late.
 
It has a one year warranty, which is pretty standard for this camcorder.

What other camera that is tape based in part has a longer warranty?
 
That's unfortunate, but I'd say your story is largely anecdotal. My bet is that if you put a poll on this thread, that most users will report that they did not experience this issue in their HVX200(x) models.

I owned two, and among the problems I did have, headphone jack failure wasn't among them. The plastic backing behind the ND switch did fall into the camera on one of them, requiring a trip to the bench. Otherwise, they're solid little cameras in my hundreds of hours of experience.
 
No user error. I treat that camera like the queen's china, foam/padded pelican case, regular cleaning, etc. and NO it has never been dropped or experienced the slightest trauma whatsoever. I have not used any DOF adapters,etc either.
 
With a credible two posts at DVXuser, you are suggesting to abandon this cam given the years of solid service it has given. I'm not saying your comments don't have merit, but there is a bigger picture (video) here.

Grant
 
I have two and absolutely beat the crap out of them.....been bout 3 years now in a dusty, race track... run and gun scenarios.... Just sent in one of them for service.. 600 bucks and its back up to snuff and ready for more.... cheap repair... great camera.

I also use them both with firestores and NEVER had a failure.....

next cam will be a 370..... if it takes half the beating the 200's did ..... i'de be satisfied.
 
HVX200 is 1 solid camera. I shoot mostly with my 7D these days but I still have my HVX200. As a stock lens camera it's pretty sweet.
 
i used mine for two years without even hint of problem... sometimes you run across a lemon. or even a perfect-storm of variables that cause things to go wrong.
 
I've had two problems with my HVX. The first one was the small cheap 1394 port. It's a joke how small and badly placed it was. It was in the way no matter how you did when you had to carry the camera and shoot.

I've talked with a friend of mine who works with panasonics pro camcorders. He states that this is a problem that Panasonic is well aware of, and a problem that they were aware of even before the HVX was released but they didn't want to do anything about it. This is a way for them to continue milking their customers on money after they buy the camera.
He also said that each time they've recieved an HVX that needs to change the 1394 port, the warranty won't cover it because they call it an "user error". Insted of just admitting that it's a very cheap and bad port from the beggining.
Same thing goes with the Sony's firewire ports he said.

Second was the CCD missalignment. When using an adapter the picture wasn't in the middle when zooming in.
This resulted in a unsharp image at the left bottom corner no matter what you did. Also this issue is hard to get approved even if you have any warranty left on it. I got the answer "well as long as you won't use any adapter you won't notice any fault".

My question is then why won't they inform their customers that their expensive camera might have a CCD missalignment.
 
Like any delicate instrument treat it kindly and it will provide you years of reliable service. Treat it like trash and that is what you will own in a year, "trash". I had one for years treated it like all my gear and never had any problems, at all.
 
There is a difference between handling the camera well, and being careful when inserting and removing a 4-pin firewire cable.

From day 1, the boards were aware of issues with the location and design of the port, and most of us kept that in mind when using the port
 
I typed out a really snappy response to this post about how much work my two HVX's have done, and how they paid off my mortgage...

But really, I don't think this guy is worth it. Buy a different camera and then come back and tell us when that breaks.
 
Had 1 problem with my HVX, under warranty sent it in had it back in 4 days and havent looked back since....that was 3 years ago. This Cam has been my best investment to date.
 
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