Quite ridiculous.Anyways, rather than pay $100 odd for shipping an EV-S9000 from the US I've bought a Sony DCR-TRV720 Digital 8 camcorder. Even the professional EVO- range come in PAL and NTSC variants too rather than an all in one. It's a beautifully made deck, but alas no amount of prodding and poking can get it to play NTSC tapes.I'm not sure whether Sony are really hobbled by red tape or whether they intentionally cripple their devices depending upon the region so that pro studios buy two. Government as usual looking out for our best interestsIt's a real pity it can only play PAL. They probably added hardware 'features' to prevent firmware updates. Compounding this was the UK tax on recording that caused Sony to issue lobotomy firmware to UK products to make said products salable in the UK. Keep in mind that not all Digital8 camcorders will play Video8/Hi8 tapes.So your options are: PAL camcorders and a capture card/DVD recorders (only Pioneer models) with PAL60 support or NTSC playback device (camcorders and VCR deck - Sony ES EV-S3000). Digital8 camcorders can convert analogue tapes in digital form (DV signal) over firewire. The analogue ouput for PAL camcorders is not true NTSC, is PAL60 or NTSC M. On the other hand Pal Hi8 camcorders and Pal Digital8 camcorders with Hi8/8mm analogue playback will play NTSC tapes. So if the best model can`t is unlikely that a cheaper one (Sony EV-S1000E, EV-C2000E) will do. I don`t know, but your deck is the best consumer PAL Hi8 VCR.
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