About

We help people buy used tape camcorders without getting burned. Name the one you’re after, like a Sony VX1000, a Handycam CCD-TRV128, a Canon XL1 or a JVC VHS-C palmcorder, and there’s a page for it. Each one tells you the model’s story, which tapes it records and plays, how you’ll get the footage onto a computer, what wears out and what to check before you buy.

Some buyers want the look of 90s home video. Others have a box of family tapes and need something that will play them. What owners know about these cameras is scattered across old manuals, forum threads and repair notes, and a raw eBay search gives you none of it. So we keep 35 model pages in one place, write down the things that catch used buyers out (a camera that powers on but won’t play a tape, clogged heads, a dead battery with no charger, a dim screen, a PAL camera sold to an NTSC buyer, a hazy lens) and pick the listings we’d buy.

We don’t sell camcorders. No affiliate links. We earn nothing. We only recommend what we’d buy, and we’d rather you buy used. We run no analytics or tracking cookies, and we’re not affiliated with any camcorder maker. See how we work for how the pages are researched and our disclosure for how links, picks and photos work.

Timecode is part of allbutnew, a set of shops for secondhand gear. Got a camcorder to sell? The “Get an offer” link on every model page sends it to our camcorder expert, who replies by email.