I was wondering if anyone knew if there is a way to disable the automatic shut off on the camera when it is not in record mode for a while. I want to work on some stop motion and time lapse stuff but thats not going to happen if the camera shuts off on me after a few minutes.

- Dan

You know, somewhere I saw an article about making something that plugged into the LANC jack to do this, but now I can't find it!

I use to do this with my Sony Hi8. If the cassette door is left open with no tape in it the camera will stay on. Maybe this would work for your sony. However, I wouldn't want to get dust in there because it is left open.

Thats a neat trick, alas most of the time i don't want my 950 to shut down is when its on remote, so i have to keep hitting start/stop (managed to get thru 10 bands yesterday doing this trick.. except when I hit the start button on the remote which started the 950.. and stopped the pd150 i had in my hands. and i didn't notice for 5 mins. doh!) to keep it alive. handy if you're using it in conjuction with being hooked up to an external deck or laptop tho.

Very strange Dan, as both my VX2000s stay on for hours at a time when I'm doing filmn to video transfer work, and they never shut down. No tape in them of course as Firewire takes the signal direct to the pc.

tom.

The only way I can get my vx2100 not to shut down automatically is to not leave a tape inside. Its a pain in the butt when setting up shots. Pressing the photo button will wake up the camera.

There's no way to disable this through the menu like the PD170, where you can get the tape drive to disengage instead of shutting down the camera.