Hi there,

So I'm about to buy a second hand PD-170 on eBay and there's some cracking models available. However, since I can't handle the item, the crux of buying is the no. of hours the camera has been used for. According to the PD 170 handbook :

Operation hours - no. of hours camera has been used
Drum hours - no. of hours tape loaded and brushing against against the tape deck heads
Tape hours - no. of hours tape running (not still)
Thread hours - no. of hours of threading (which has something to do with just allowing the tapedeck to play without having a tape loaded).

Can someone please clarify if these are correct? What does threading actually mean? Is it the total drum or tape hours that is most important when choosing the camera?

Thanks alot. Stephen.

I've realized the obviousness of these stats after going over the manual so a better question would be, what would you recommend as reasonable for a two year old PD-170 camera?