{"id":35,"date":"2007-03-10T19:52:54","date_gmt":"2007-03-10T18:52:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bergs.biz\/blog\/2007\/03\/10\/sudden-death-to-my-camcorder\/"},"modified":"2007-03-10T20:21:21","modified_gmt":"2007-03-10T19:21:21","slug":"sudden-death-to-my-camcorder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bergs.biz\/blog\/2007\/03\/10\/sudden-death-to-my-camcorder\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudden death to my camcorder… :-("},"content":{"rendered":"

When we last visited my girlfriend Mona’s parents we wanted to show them the video I made from our car safety training at the ADAC in Grevenbroich<\/a>. To my great horror (and I mean <\/em>“horror”) the camcorder refused to load the tape — as soon as I closed the tape loader, I heard the whirring noise of a motor, but the camcorder didn’t load the cartridge (i. e. the cartridge loader didn’t slide down.) Instead an error message “remove tape” was displayed. The same happened to another cartridge I had brought with me, which made me pretty sure the camcorder was broken. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

I don’t have the faintest idea what could have happened to the camcorder, because it was practically new. I bought it a little bit longer than two years ago and basically only used it during my vacations. So far I only recorded 22 tapes (with 60 mins. max. recording time each), that’s less than 20 hours of video material (because most of the tapes aren’t anywhere near <\/em>to being completely recorded.) Add to this the operating hours while I played the tapes, and you end up with approximately 50 to 60 power-on-hours.<\/p>\n

The camcorder cost me more than 700 EUR, so it was definitely worth having it repaired. Therefore I sent it to the manufacturer’s repair center and asked them for a quote. What a horror when I received their e-mail that named a price of nearly 200 EUR to have it repaired. Supposedly the recording head is broken.<\/p>\n

Hello??? Anybody home??? We’re talking about a top-brand camcorder that has hardly been used at all, with no wear and no scratches at all, and they expect me to shell out almost a third of the original price to have it repaired?!<\/p>\n

For the time being, I haven’t agreed to paying the (full) price for the repair. Instead, I’ve replied to their e-mail, asking whether they will repair it for free or at least for a drastically reduced fee. Depending on what they reply to me, you will read more about who the manufacturer is and which brand I will avoid in the future. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we last visited my girlfriend Mona’s parents we wanted to show them the video I made from our car safety training at the ADAC in Grevenbroich. 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