You are right, it's not believable. Sony doesn't think so either, that's why it's still under warranty from the manufacturer. It's likely a part that worked its way loose and has caused the loader mechanism to jam.

-gb-

Just a quick note here -- as Greg points out, please do NOT post the contents of private emails to this site. We remove them as a matter of policy. The sender of the email, not the recipient, holds the copyright to it and there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. Thanks for understanding,

Didn't want this to get lost in the thread -- what Greg suggests is what exactly needs to happen. First get your camera back from the dealer, and then send it directly to Sony factory service in New Jersey.

Sorry about the cut and paste. Won't happen again. Also, the camera WAS sent to Sony in NJ and they are the ones who quoted the repair cost (according to Pro Products). Obviously there is more to the story than meets the eye. To be continued...

I've tried using the Sony guys in NJ for repairs. It was a disaster and very stressful. They overcharged me to say the least, but with many phone calls I got the price reduced. I asked for the cam to have it's backfocus checked and it actually came back worse!

I find the guys at Armatos the best for repairs for Sony cams. The turn around time, the price, and most of all the quality of the work is above excellence. Plus, they are good fair people. I love them. They are in NY.

Just spoke with Sony person while here at HQ. He says it should be a warranty issue... no question about it. He is aware that some of the cameras have experienced loader issues.

I hope you didn't pay for a repair.

-gb-

Thanks for following up Greg. The happy ending to this long drawn out saga is that we did not pay for the repair and it was covered by the warranty. That's the happy ending...

The disturbing aspect of this story remains... why did my "vendor" insist that it was not covered and that Sony XDCam HD cams had a 1 year warranty rather than 2 years? It took this forum to save me 3600 bucks! Scary- but I hope this helps future XDCam users in even the slightest of ways...

Thank you to all who chimed in and... I hope this thread encourages that positive/proactive behavior even more in the future.