Quote Originally Posted by citiboyz View Post
We have a couple of DSR-11's and haven't had any bad luck with them at all, except for one time when I messed up the heads by trying to play a very old MiniDV tape that had deteriorated. But one thing I learned from using the DSR-11 over the years is how careful you have to be when inserting tape cassettes. I do think the loading mechanism is a little fragile.
Absolutely, the loading mechanism is VERY fragile. We haven't really had problems with that as much as we have getting them to eject. We have four and all have been in for repair at least twice. The most frustrating thing is we bought a new one in May and the first time we used it the damn thing ate the tape. Not only did it chew the tape up pretty good but sending it back in for repairs always seems to take a month or longer to get it back..

Messing up the heads on a DSR-11 due to an old deteriorated Mini-DV tape is exactly the reason we output everything in a DV-CAM format. The DV-CAM tape is much thicker and less succeptible to deterioration.

We are almost completed place the films onto 1 Terrabyte external hardrives so we'll have less use on the DSR-11's but still, being an old fart, I'm not comfortable unless I have 2 or 3 back up's of all raw footage and edited films on DV-CAM and stored in multiple location.

Hard drives fail and the Department of Justice can walk in and seize everything in the office if they ever want to. In such a case, I always have a back up or two elsewhere in and out of this country.

Just sign me off as "Nervous Nellie"

Thanks for your input!