Does anyone have a hint on where one might get hold of a service repair manual for the GY-HD111E or a generic one for the GY-HD*** camera family. I have got my grotty hands on a used machine which plays back fine for recovering an old archive of what finally turned out to be about 60 tapes.

This was far too much more than I felt I had any right to ask vollie camera owners to do for a friend and fellow filmie who had gone and sold his camera.

This camera itself has a colour channel or sensor fault which confers a khaki yellowish cast into the image with lens flares being yielded in bright blue rather than clear-white. This hints at very low yields from the red and green/luma channels or the blue channel running amok somehow. White balance and other adjustable colour settings are overwhelmed by this defect.

Playback colour rendition from other good camera recordings is fine, hence its usefulness as a playback machine. It would be good to get it running properly again if the fix is easy like a dry joint on a ribbon cable, connector or socket pin soldered base.

While I am happy to run around inside my Sony camera which I have fixed a few times, - dust and chipped take-up gear, I have no idea how to take this one apart without the risk of introducing new faults on the voyage of discovery.

Any hints as to where I can get a copy of the manual will be much appreciated. JVC approved techs want to fix it rather than give away advice which is fair enough. Given its low value and unlikely use after the captures are done, repair by a tech is uneconomic.

They were a sweet machine in their time.

Hmm. I have contacts at JVC in the USA who probably know the folks at JVC down there. Will inquire.

I wonder if you could make use of a North American service manual? Wrong voltage, sure, but might be attainable.

Hello again Chris.


Thanks for your reply.

I did enquire with an approved Aussie repair centre. The nearest is in our eastern states which is like Alaska is to you in Texas.

I have just checked in again because I managed to get hold of a .pdf file of the repair manual. All I will be good for skills-wise will be to check for resistive or dislodged connectors or ribbon cable inserts. Hopefully that may be all that is awry.

If not, the machine will still be good for captures. The firewire socket shield has been spread a little but looks like a Focus Enhancements recorder has been attached. This means the socket itself will not have been used much to capture from if at all.

Do you know what the short firewire cable which isolates the power conductors is called or where it might be sourced if still available. I don't want to fry the firewire circuit with the capture computer.

Postscript to the above posts.


I managed to find a manual as a .pdf. The camera comes apart easier than the Sony Z1 but there are a few little traps.

The problem turned out to be the blue sensor which had come off the prism. Adhesive fastening to the prism itself is the only mechanical support. They are not secondarily secured in any other way. That is rather slack engineering which puts the hardware firmly in the consumer level. There are fitments which indicate that the sensors are jigged to the prism block for the glue to set. These are small strips with a taper at one end and a screw fastening tapped into a fold.

There is a very small fan in the guts. It does not draw air from outside. It would seem that it just passes heat to the case and that the internal temperature can rise enough to fail the glue. The remaining dags of failed glue were not hard to clean from the prism. Unless one can get hold of an assembly jig, that is about as far as the repair can proceed unless the entire prism assembly is replaced and of course that has the same fatal flaw.

It has been a while since I last posted on this topic. I got hold of a couple of used and defective JVC ProHD cameras for recovering about 60 tapes worth of WW2 oral histories. I was seeking assistance from other owners here in Perth but 60 hours of capture is a bit too much of an ask.

The broken cams have good transports. Both cameras have the usual blue sensor detachment from the prism block. It is rather a pity that they all are fated to fail this way. I wonder if anyone has devised a way to stabilise the thus far non-failed sensor/prism assemblies before the glue goes soft and the blue sensors come off.

The prism/sensor assembly can be had as a replacement part but the cost is prohibitive.