close to 900 hours of operation on my Z1...

[Silas Barker]

Does anyone know how long these last? I ve had it for 2 years and love it. Never had a problem. Taken super good care of it. I just do not want surprises at a Wedding or Event.
I have the Z5 too, and I was thinking about getting a second one, but the CCD auto focus of the Z1 is a bit better and I would like to use it as long as possible.

Anyone know how long Z1's can go?!

[Don Bloom]

900 hours of operation but how many hours of drum run?

I had about 1700 hours of operation and about 1100 hours of drum run on my PD150 before I had the heads and transport replaced.
Operation means the hours the camera in ON but drum run means the number of hours tape has run thru it. More meaningful number.

Sony and others have told me that generally the heads are good for about 1200 hours so the drum run is the important number.

I'd hate to tel you how many hours my 150 and 170 have on them now :-(

[Silas Barker]

It has 64 x 10 Drum run, how far will that go?!

[Don Bloom]

that's on 640 hours of drum run-so theoretically it should be good for about another 400 to 500 hours but the choice is yours. Like I said, I had about 1100 hours of drum run on one camera before I had the heads done but the camera was running/recording just fine.

[Philip Howells]

A director of our supplier (a Sony Main agent in the UK and Europe) tells me that they've NEVER re-headed a Z1 due to wear. Sony may say to Don x hours but they're in the business of selling heads. Remember that in comparison to the days of Betacam-SP the tape is now moving very slowly so head wear is proportionately lower.

Finally, we've recently added an MRC1K to each of our Z1s so head wear is now a thing of the past.

[Silas Barker]

I am not too worried about it. I have enough cameras in case anything happens. Been great so far!! (2 years with that one)

[Vito DeFilippo]

Silas,

I took my Z1 in last year for a cleaning for the first time at abut 1000hrs drum run. I'm usually of the same mind as Boyd Ostroff: if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But I thought it might be useful just so that it could be checked over.

Well, I was very happy cause it turned out I needed a new pinch roller. So it was worth it, for sure.

Didn't need new heads, though...

[Tom Hardwick]

Originally Posted by Philip Howells

Remember that in comparison to the days of Betacam-SP the tape is now moving very slowly so head wear is proportionately lower.

I'd say it was writing speed that mattered, not tape speed Philip. And the Z1 writes at nearly 10 metres per second regardless of whether it writes or reads HDV or DV. That's the height of an olympic diving board of tape passing the heads, every second. I'm amazed the heads last so long.