Low hours for a DVX?

It really depends on how those hours were put on the camera. I have about 250 on my camera but I've only used Panasonic MQ tapes and I take extreme care of my camera. You could pull a brand new camera out of the box and side by side not be able to tell them apart.
Most people aren't as anal about care of their gear so they may have fewer hours on the heads but the camera could be in much worse condition.
 
Tape head hours are tape head hours no matter what. Using a better grade of tape and handling the equipment in a careful manner as Sirius Doggy obviously does, makes a big difference in other aspects of the camera. MQ tape will certainly minimize headwear and leave fewer if any lubricant deposits. Overall headwear however can only be avoided by not running tapes across them. In my opinion, low hours are less than 50. If you think about it, every record hour on a camera is the equivalent of an entire 60 minute cassette. If someone has 200 or 300 hours on a piece of equipment, that's alot of cassettes. Some people also rewind, fast forward and playback cassettes in the camera. These actions are not recorded on the hour meter. There are other components such as drive motor, loading mechanism, etc. that are affected by tape hours as well.
 
I don't know if I'd say less than 50 being low.... ( I mean it is ) The heads are rated at something like 1000 hours so anywhere less than 20% IMO is low =200hrs..... it is completly how you treat your cam. if someone's switching tape brands like crazy and leaving the cam sitting on there desk collecting dust, what ever the case even really low hrs can equal a crap camera....
 
There was a DVX cam on ebay last week that only had 6 hours, but the camera had been carted around IRAQ for 18 months. Not for me!!!
 
Nick,

Having both an industrial production and equipment sales background, I'm probably a little more conservative when it comes to operating hours. I wish that DV equipmet had the same usage metering systems as the older industrial decks like Beta SP, D-2, etc. Many of them measure total operating hours, tape head hours, drum hours and even tape thread hours. Knowing all of this gives a true measure of use in addition to the obvious appearance.
 
galt said:
There was a DVX cam on ebay last week that only had 6 hours, but the camera had been carted around IRAQ for 18 months. Not for me!!!
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BINGO - My wife was over there in 91 and she describes the sand there as talcum powder, not like the grainy sand here in the Nevada desert. :(
She said it gets into EVERYTHING.... (I never have asked what she means by EVERYTHING????):evil:
 
If its below 100 hours its a good risk, provided the camera is not a lemon. Under 200 you can bargain down and over 200 I would say to get it at half the new price. Just my .02
 
Ernest_Acosta said:
If its below 100 hours its a good risk, provided the camera is not a lemon. Under 200 you can bargain down and over 200 I would say to get it at half the new price. Just my .02
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I'm glad I'm not trying to sell my camera to you.... There's no way I'd part with it for $1,600.....:laugh:
 
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