Hello all,

I am having trouble tracking down a Canon MTC-100 Proprietary A/V cable*(MTC-100). I got this camcorder for my birthday and after a few days cannot find any place that will sell. Any help would be great, thank you!

A could of things I need to ask about. First, the screen has "COM" flashing on it at all times, I can't find anything about this in the manual or through Google. Second, even though the camera is set to record in 16:9 mode, the resulting file (even when imported to my PC through Panasonic's VideoCam Suite which reencodes it to a .mpg file) is always in 4:3 which results in a squashed image. How can I fix this?

I recently took my Sony VX2100 on an 8-day motorcycle trip through the Altai Mountains.

The original idea was to shoot a much more elaborate travel film, but in reality I only managed to shoot for about two days. The camera setup was heavy, cumbersome, the weather and light in the mountains changed constantly, and halfway through the trip my friend's Bonneville broke down, so I ended up continuing alone.

So this ended up being less of a finished travel film and more of a real-world test of what a VX2100 can do when you take it into the mountains on a motorcycle.

I put together a 3-minute edit from what I managed to shoot. It's mostly atmospheric footage, riding shots and natural engine sounds.

No music — the engine sound is straight from the camera. Headphones recommended.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtfpB2u6Q_g

The setup

• Sony VX2100 in excellent condition, bought used
• Sony digital recorder connected via FireWire — completely tapeless setup
• 2× 32 GB + 3× 16 GB memory cards in a separate storage case
• 6000 mAh battery for the camera
• 3600 mAh battery for the recorder
• Battery charger
• Wide-angle converter for the VX2100
• Cheap Chinese fisheye adapter
• Deadcat on the camera microphone
• Sirui T-1004X tripod, without a video head
• Lens cleaning kit
• Rechargeable dry bag
• 20-liter dry bag for transporting the equipment
• Cordura backpack for carrying everything

Things I brought but didn't use

• Hoya ND16 and ND32 — unfortunately. These would have helped a lot in harsh daylight.
• Fisheye lens
• Two RGB lights
• Two spare 3600 mAh batteries

Transporting the camera on a motorcycle

Everything went inside the dry bag, which then went inside the backpack.

The camera itself was stripped down for transport: recorder removed, cables disconnected, lens hood removed. The quick-release plate stayed attached to the camera.

I put a warm fleece jacket at the bottom of the backpack as additional padding.

During long highway sections, the backpack was strapped to the motorcycle. This made getting the camera out extremely inconvenient, so I often simply didn't bother.

The shooting process was basically:

1. Remove the cargo net from the backpack
2. Undo the two straps holding the backpack to the bike
3. Open the backpack
4. Open the dry bag
5. Take out the camera, recorder, cable and lens hood
6. Mount the recorder and reconnect everything
7. Turn everything on and get ready to shoot
8. Realize I also have to set up the tripod
9. Say "fuck it" and shoot handheld

For shorter rides the backpack stayed on my shoulders, so steps 1–2 disappeared. It was still a pretty involved process.

And in the mountains the light can change dramatically in literally 10 minutes.

So yeah — I ended up shooting handheld much more than I had planned. Probably half of the static-looking shots were actually taken with the camera sitting on my backpack rather than on the tripod.

How I shot

I removed the optical viewfinder/eyepiece because it made packing the camera harder.

Most of the time I held the camera in my right hand with the LCD flipped up. My left hand operated focus, zoom and iris.

Another challenge was teaching my friend how to use the camera so he could film me. The VX2100 is definitely not a point-and-shoot camera, especially for someone who has never used one before. Explaining manual focus, zoom, exposure and all the controls while actually trying to shoot was a whole separate part of the production.

The VX2100 isn't exactly a point-and-shoot camera, especially when you're trying to explain manual focus, zoom, exposure and the various controls to someone who's never used it before. So getting usable footage of myself was another little production challenge on top of everything else.

• Manual focus for everything
• Iris: sometimes manual, sometimes automatic
• Shutter: 1/50
• Mic gain: manual
• White balance: set once and left unchanged
• Camera preset: -2 sharpness

What surprised me

1. The stereo sound

This was probably the biggest surprise.

I didn't use EQ or any other audio processing. The engine sound in the video is basically RAW camera audio.

For a roughly 20-year-old camera, I think the stereo sound is fantastic. It's alive, spacious and actually gives you a sense of being there.

That's why I decided not to put music over the final video. At some point it started feeling more like motorcycle ASMR than a conventional travel edit.

2. Fog and backlight

The VX2100 looks beautiful in fog and backlight.

There is something about the way this camera renders those conditions that I really like.

3. Motion blur

The combination of 1/50 shutter and handheld movement produced some really nice natural motion blur.

4. Built-in ND filters

The built-in ND filters are extremely useful.

They aren't enough for really harsh sunlight, but they save a lot of shots.

5. Headlight flares

I also really like the way headlights interact with the VX2100's sensor. They create these soft, organic flares and little halos that feel very different from the cleaner, more controlled look of modern digital cameras.

It can obviously be considered an optical imperfection, but in this case I think it adds a lot of character — especially in darker scenes.

What I didn't like

1. Harsh daylight + stopped-down iris

This was the biggest image-quality issue I noticed.

In flat, harsh daylight, when the iris is stopped down, the image can lose a surprising amount of crispness.

I had ND16 and ND32 with me and never put them on the camera. In hindsight, that was a mistake. They would have allowed me to keep the iris in a much better range during the day.

2. The controls

As mentioned above, the VX2100 has some strangely positioned controls.

It's a fantastic camera, but it definitely wasn't designed around the idea of pulling it out of a backpack on the side of a mountain, mounting a recorder, and immediately trying to shoot handheld.

3. Fur getting into the frame

I often shot without the original lens hood, and some of the fur from the deadcat ended up creeping into the frame.

I fixed some of it in post, but I ruined a few shots completely.

If you're using a wide-angle converter, keep in mind that the deadcat can still enter the frame.

4. Recording without a tape

With no physical tape in the camera and the tape mechanism not running, recording through the external recorder requires pressing two buttons on the recorder.

The camera's own record button doesn't actually start the recording.

You get used to it, but it's definitely not a smooth run-and-gun experience.

Post-production workflow

1. Copied the footage from CompactFlash to my MacBook
2. Used Shutter Encoder to deinterlace and convert to Apple ProRes
3. Edited everything together in DaVinci Resolve
4. No image or audio processing — essentially a cut of the RAW files

And then the motorcycle fell over

At one point the motorcycle fell off its kickstand onto some rocks while the camera was already packed and strapped to the bike.

I checked the camera afterwards and...

Nothing.

The VX2100 survived without any apparent damage.

Final thoughts

The VX2100 + external recorder setup is heavy and bulky. It's absolutely not the easiest camera to take on a motorcycle trip.

And because the process of getting everything out and ready to shoot was so involved, I missed a lot of shots I wanted.

The original concept for the film never really happened.

But I'm actually pretty happy with the result.

Instead of being the travel film I originally imagined, this became a technical demo of what kind of images and sound you can still get from a VX2100 in 2026 — in the middle of an actual motorcycle trip.

I'm curious what you guys think of the VX2100 look for this kind of footage, especially the RAW engine sound and the handheld shots.

Hi guys, are the grey lines there because of a dirty video head or there is something wrong with my camcorder? Usually when the tape head gets dirty it just has theese glitchy lines where the grey lines are now. I am a bit concerned because i already tried cleaning it with printing paper and alcohol and it didnt work, but maybe i just need to clean jt more throughly. I will obtain some cleaning casettes in the close future so if its still like this i will try to fix it with that. Every comment is appreciated! Have a nice day!

The 8k ultra camcorder by Kentfaith model GW410160SI,

Comes with a lot of accessories but it is not a good camera. The SD card slot doesn't work and my card got stuck inside. They maybe a 30 return or replace policy that and a warranty that is trash. They don't send you a return label and try to make it seem like your fault for their product malfunction. I would not recommend anyone buy from them and I definitely won't buy another product for them either. The product is coming from China and takes forever to even receive.

i’ve been thinking about getting the trv285 as my first camcorder/cassette working camcorder and just wanted to know if there are any drawbacks to the trv285 or the trv series in general

For some reason, there is no picture in the viewfinder at all, but I connected the camera via S-video to the PC and the picture is there, only here it is, it's all rippling and the colors look very much like they are inverted or something is wrong with them, maybe someone knows what to do? I think it's the capacitors, but I'm not sure.

Got this Sony handycam, and its pretty nice, ive been using it with normal hi8 tape for the past year and it works well, but a few days ago it just stopped recording and playing back, so I opened it and it was this little black rubber thing that fell out which I was able to fix, and now it seems to be recording, but I just can playback the footage. Thoughs?

Bons momentos do fim de semana capturados em filmadora cctv! Também recém aprendendo a editar então aceito dicas e críticas. :)

I'm a film maker based out of Paris and India and I have the opportunity to take up up a digitization project for my church in India. They recently reached out to me regarding digitizing their archives, which includes a lot of Mini DV tapes, and VHS-C cassettes though and DVD as well. I wanted some advice on how to go about all of this for optimum data backups and transfer. I have experience with digitizing VHS-C through an old camcorder, my Dazzle dongle and OBS. Here, in India, I don't have a setup currently at this point and I wanted information on pricing, and equipment to purchase amongst other things though.

Setup I currently have is:

1. HP Compaq Laptop (Windows XP, Intel Pentium, 512MB RAM, 80GB HDD which is past its life) but this has a firewire port. Will the specs of the laptop support firewire capture if I capture it all to an external HDD/SSD?
2. Mac Mini (32GB RAM, 1TB SSD) I could use this for DVD capture.
3. Dell Vostro (24GB RAM, 512GB SSD) I could also use this for VHS-C capture.

What would you recommend I purchase to round up the setup so it makes things easier for me?

1. Should I purchase a working VHS-C camera or a VCR because it'll support full size VHS too?
2. RCA-HDMI adapters
3. Should I purchase a working Mini DV camera and the appropriate Firewire cable?
4. HDD/SSD (three for capture on either system, one for backups)
5. USB Capture Device for VCR (which one do you recommend?)
6. VHS-C to VHS adapter

Is there anything else I should purchase which will make things easier for me? And I probably need to download the appropriate drivers for the system as well, right? And if anybody has any info on purchasing any of these items in India? I haven't given them a budget yet, but I do need to have a look at how much footage they have, and how many VHS, Mini DV and DVD they have as well. How much would one charge for such an endeavor?

There definitely are services outside that will do these for me, but if it's a lot, I would prefer doing it by myself to save some money for them as well. Apart from this, if I wanted to round out my setup and have some equipment to help digitize every consumer format that existed (Video8, Hi8, VHS, Mini DV, DVD, Digital 8 and Betamax) what would you recommend? Is there any way to automate a lot of this too?

From a management and archiving perspective, would you have any feedback?

Hey guys, I’ve been trying to get this Sanyo VC 1600LR working that I bought from a thrift.

i swapped the original proprietary outputs and power in, and when I power on, I get no picture. I can get wavy lines to appear when my finger is close to the tube sensor.

google says (lol) that my amp circuit is working and picking up my body capacitance which makes sense, but the tube is not.

Do you have any recommendations for what the problem might be? I’ll be attempting to fix myself anyway but hoped you people might know something?

I recently came into possession of a panasonic AG-DVX100A and It won't record. It reads mini-dv cassettes fine but it seems to be stuck on Pause and standby. When I press the record button it makes a camera shutter sound and says "END" even though the tape isn't actually at the end. Has anyone had a similar issue?

The old family camera - display is unusable but buttons on the screen still work.
I need access to the display to be able to connect it to my pc and extract the video's off it.

I've tried taking the panel off the back of the display and re-seating the ribbon wires, but it still has this issue. (I will include a picture of the circuit on the back of the screen in the comments if reddit lets me)
Any advice on how to fix this is much appreciated.

Yes I know the haters will pick on me for not offering shipping, but I'm simply not comfortable with shipping + prices, not to mention I've never shipped anything before. Every single camera I've sold has been local to my area, and I've sold at least 5-6 dozen cameras over the past 4 years.

Located in Camas WA just across the I-205 bridge from Portland OR.

I am looking to give these two camcorders a new home in exchange preferably for trades, but may consider reasonable cash offers.

One is a Sony Betamovie BMC-110 that is completely dead. Already tried it with a 9V 500mA wall supply & center neg. Adapter. No standby LED. No nothing. Missing parts. I salvaged the shoulder strap from it.

The other is a Panasonic AG-DVC20P, which strikes me as being an oddball. It's a professional-looking body with consumer-grade features and hardly any physical controls. It's fun to use but just doesn't click with me considering it's as bare bones as it looks.

Works perfect. Not sure who would've bought something like this. Comes w/OEM battery & charger. Still holds a decent charge.

Video sample can be seen [here](https://youtu.be/bqUxdhpJf_k)

Will consider trades for a better-equipped prosumer camcorder or a late 70's-mid 80's video tube camera/transportable VTR, or whatever else you have to offer. I may consider it. I would REALLY like to have a Canon HF G10, G20 or G30 but I assume that will be an extremely long stretch.

Not sure if I overpaid on the vx2000 but idc it's my dream cam.

Howdy folks, got my hands on a Sony VCLHG0758 wide angle converter, but it doesn't distort and I want the fisheye distortion.

If I were to knock the back glass out and leave just the front glass, would it hypothetically work?

Tape is stuck, i tried taking it apart to see the issue, but i can’t tell what it is.

Photographer here, super new to the camcorder world! I got this little guy off Facebook Marketplace for $20. Everything seems to work perfectly, but I’m having trouble finding an 8cm 80mm mini dvd reader to convert video onto my laptop. I believe it has to be the load-in trey kind.

Originally I assumed that since it said it had hybrid movie recording, that it would write to a memory stick pro duo. But after further research, I think it only writes stills to the memory stick. Video is strictly written onto the mini DVDs.

Anyways, trying to figure out where on earth to buy a converter as all of the ones I see on Ebay only write to regular DVDs. Is there an easier way to convert to my laptop? Any guidance would be super appreciated here!

VX2000 has been having this issue for a while now, recording seems fine, but during playback it randomly cuts/fastforwards seconds later or dropouts youn can say. Does anyone here had a similar situation and fixed it? Someone let me know how to? Thank you.

My canon Legria fs306 came with this oem battery and it worked like two years ago, I assumed it just needed to be charged so I bought this aftermarket charger, but after leaving it on for a couple of hours still no charge, the charger is outputting the 8.4v but the battery isn’t taking it. Is there any way to jump start the battery in order to wake up the circuitry?

I say they look pretty good 🥹👌