Panasonic AG-DV1000 Mini DV VCR

Pros: This deck is a piece of junk. Buy a Sony
Cons: This deck is a piece of junk. Buy a Sony

I've owned this deck for five years, and have very few hours on it. It has eaten many tapes. Now, it suddenly doesn't work at all. Very nice. This deck is a piece of junk.

Update! I spent $270 dollars repairing the AC connection about 6 months ago. It had to be re-soldered, because of cracks in the board. (This deck has neither been dropped nor abused.)

Today, after using it once or twice, the transport motor has suddenly just died.

This machine is a over-priced piece of garbage. DO NOT BUY!!!!!

Pre-mature wearing of heads: I do a limited amount of video work as a side business / hobby. I wanted to purchase a deck to avoid wearing out the heads on my Canon XL1, so about 15 months ago I purchased the AGDV-1000. I used the deck mostly to play the master mini DV's for making duplicate VHS copies. Over the past 15 months I did 5 projects with a total of 200 VHS copies. I make 4 copies at a time so I used the deck for aprox. 50 hours. At the most, I put 100 hours on the deck. Recently the playback has become poor. I have been told that my heads are worn and need to be replaced. This is suppose to be an industrial product and it is worn out in 100 hours of use. I was told that I probably cleaned the heads to much but before the picture went bad, I probably only cleaned them 15 times. I've cleaned my XL1 heads atleast 50 times and haven't had a problem. Warranty is only a year so avoid getting stuck with a big bill by not buying this deck.