Sell or repair HC5?

Z

zoob

Active member
I've had this little Sony HC5 HDV handycam for 4.5 years and am in the middle of making a short. It suddenly lost it's portability and now needs to be plugged in. It appears to be a curcuit board problem needing servicing. The 4 year extended warranty came up 6 months short. Unfortunately, my project is quite literelly in the field and needs portability.

I was wondering if I should sell it as-is and get a DSLR or get it repaired for $140, finish the short, then sell it. I know I can't replace it for $140 yet this type of cam will just screw up again if I have it repaired - then sell it. I'd be sticking someone with a unit I know will fail, I think - not really sure what they do in repair - who knows?

I've called Sony twice and they are completely unsympathetic with their mis-manufactured product. I keep asking them if there's anything they can do short of charging me $140 for their error. They say they'll send me a free box to ship...oh brother.

Right now, I'm leaning towards getting it repaired so the footage matches. What do you think?
 
The cassette door is starting to not close...another malady...but getting no error code...yet.
I really don't want to invest another penny in this trash but
1) I don't think a DSLR's footage would match (could degrade footage in post I suppose)
2) Sony's would notice and fix both problems...possibly
 
Do you have a UPS for your computer? A small one of those cost about $30 and after its charged up, will run anything that needs AC power for quite a while. Especially a tiny camcorder. Put it in a small backpack and run the ac cable to the camera. I did this when I was out shooting in the wilds for a couple of days and couldn't get my hands on extra batteries. You might need to rip out the buzzer from the UPS to keep it from making too much noise when something is drawing power from it. It's not pretty, but it works.
 
That sounds like the band-aid I'm looking for. I take it that they invert a battery to 120VAC to which I can plug in my camera which inverts it back to 7.2VDC for operation.

Any recommended cheapo?

Thanks...Beats handing Sony another $140
 
That's what I did. Went to micro center and got the one that was like $30 or $40 - it has 6 or 8 outlets and weighs about 4 pounds. At home I opened it up and used a pliers to rip out the internal piezo buzzer that goes off when there's a "power outage," otherwise known as using it unplugged like a battery pack. I use it at home when I'm not shooting for my computer, so a good investment either way. I think I actually have it in my backpack in my profile picture on this site!

http://www.microcenter.com/product/328339/Standby_425VA_Uninterruptible_Power_Supply_(UPS)
 
I'm getting ready to buy one and hoping the smallest APC or CyberPower will handle little 7.2VDC camera for 20 minutes with it's screen off.

What do you guys think?
 
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