Can anyone please give me some advice? I'm looking for a way to capture tapes that have been shot on a Sony Z5 (PAL). As many here have previously thought, I guess the most cost effective way is to by a cheap second hand HDV camera.

Could you give me some suggestions please? I am really only interested in capture from MiniDV tapes and it is very unlikely I would ever use the camera for anything other than home videos (which are a bit of a busman's holiday for me so they are rare occasions!). Am I right in understanding that if a camera can play an HD MiniDV recording it will also play (and allows to be captured) and SD tape?

The cameras I have looked at are the Sony HDR-HC5E, even the HDR-HC3, and the HDV-20 and all are in the £350 range (second hand) which is really the top end of my budget for this.

Thanks for any help.

Yes, any of the Sony HDV camera models will play back those those videos from the Z5, whether recorded in HDV or SD. Any of those cameras you suggested will work fine.

...unless you recorded in native progressive mode on the Z5, as I pointed out in my response to the other thread on this. Those won't play back on any cam that doesn't support that mode. Page 84. But all other modes (50i, 25p over 50i) would be fine.

Similar thread:

http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/sony-hvr-v1-hdr-fx7/484970-fx7-24p-30p-playback.html#post1571238