Don't wanna spend on fixing it. Looking for alternative to this cam, would love to keep it mini dv tapes but by the looks of things tapes are fading out. What should I look into? Considering Canon hf g10.

What's wrong with it? Someone here just had their's repaired for $200.

It records tapping sounds. Seems like the moving parts internally is creating this noise and is being picked up by the internal mic. You can hear it in play back, annoying. I had already paid about 130 to fix the LCD flex cable.

I'm only about 4 years late with this advice. You should check the carriage that holds the tape and make sure the metal hasn't been bent so that it is touched by the rotating head drum. In these camcorders, there's only a small amount of clearance. I had this problem on an HC9, that was clicking and screeching. I took it in under warranty. The guy at the repair shop listened to my description, then opened the hatch, reached in and bent the carriage just a little bit back into place and said that it was fixed. It's worked fine ever since.

My HC7 has a vertical sync issue with the LCD screen and the OSS likes to go "supersonic" with it's vibrations. The tape functions still work, and the OSS works under lower temperatures, but if it's left on for too long, the OSS goes supersonic in terms of it's vibrations.