So it is my son's first birthday. Have we used the camcorder since Christmas? Of course not. Cassette is stuck. No pictures of first birthday :( Do a little online research to troubleshoot, turns out this is a known problem with many of the Canon camcorders. This camera has literaly been used three times and of course, the warrenty expired about a week ago. Canon charges minimum of $145 for service plus shipping, so why bother. Get a Sony!

Have this brand new Canon ZR85 for about 3 weeks. All satisfaction so far except 1 serious mechanical feature. Explain below:

This camcorder is for making movie, that means "move" (not still). The tape is for 1 hour, that means need to mount on something that move rather than to hold steady by hand and move arround to capture movie for that whole hour.

I mount the camcorder on a swivel head from Bogen-Manfrotto, and the swivel head mount on my bicycle. I ride the bike on fairly good pave road with little road vibration to record scenery for several hours.

Turn out that the camcorder mounting base is made out of non-metal (plastic) can not take vibration and the thread become damage. Is this considered that user's abusing or manufacturer false to not design carefully for the "mov"ie device?

I have to turn myself to become a "tripod" now since my ZR85 has no longer usable mounting base.

I got this as christmas gift, and used it mostly indoors, sometime at night, for the past month. The still pictures came out very bad. That doesn't bother me much since I have digital cameras. However, this camera is very poor indoors, even with the night mode, the video came with very high background, color granules everywhere. it is much worse than the old miniDV I have, a Sharp model I got in 2001, which is very bulky but has been very reliable. I made two DVD side by side, and the one with Canon looks horrible. Outdoor shots are fair, but many occasions I have to take shots indoor or at night. I would go with other models if possible.

The camera is very easy to use, and is small and handy. It has more functions than you'd really want in such a camera -- if you are ever going to do something with the footage you will be using a computer and an editing program, so you don't really need the editing modes on the camera. Still, there's no complaint here, and it's flexible enough for most users.

My only complaint is that for some reason on my camera when I flipped the lcd viewer around to see from the front the image didn't rotate. I know it's supposed to do this, and it did it with the model at the store. Or: when I closed the lcd viewer with it flipped around the image shut off and I couldn't see it anymore. I'm assuming this had to do with a bad wire. But, I had no problem returning it to get a new one, so this wasn't a huge problem, only inconvenient.

All in all I would say that this is a solid entry-level camcorder, that is fairly priced and easy to use.

This cam does it all. Your sheach for a camcorder has ended. It has 2 hours of battery life with the veiwfinder , 1 with the lcd screen. Thats good. The digtal effects are cool.And you are able to connect to the computer for buring dvds and more digital effects

The marketing of this seems to imply that you can import video from the ZR-85 to a Macintosh. But that is not the case. It lacks a 4-pin port that will connect to a firewire cable and has only a 5 pin mini B port that connects to computers via a USB cable. As nearly as I am able to determine, the only way to get your digital video into your Mac is to borrow a camera with a proper Firewire port and let it play your DV tapes. This is a very disappointing bit of deceptive marketing. The Mac software included seems to be only for importing photos, not video.

Otherwise, so far, it seems to be a good camera.

I was reading the prior review and am mad. I have a ZR 30 and have continual problems with the cassette sticking and eating up my dv tapes. I have just lost a lot of footage which I hoped to make into a program for our art group.We are having a big show soon.

There are really no good options. I can get my camcorder serviced, but that costs $150. Or they will give me this machine the ZR 85, which also sounds horrible. Since customers report sticking on it too, I don't see any options. Why can't they fix such a simple thing - its not rocket science.

I bought this camera for Xmas 2004, worked fine for about 3 months (used it maybe 3-4 times). When I hooked it up to my TV, the play back would freeze. I sent it back for repairs, took about 2 months. When I got it back it would then freeze while recording. My tape was stuck inside, the camera would not respond, the red charge light would remain on. I called Canon and they suggested I send it back in. I didn't want to send it in with the tape so I kept trying to get it to work. I finally got it to turn back on and removed my tape. I didn't bother sending it back because it was working fine. I find that whenever there is only 1 bar of power in the battery it freezes. I just bought an after market battery from Ebay, if this problem persists I'll just buy a Sony.

I loved my ZR85, until a two months ago when it basically started a slow death. It would play tapes, but when in record mode, it was like gray and black infared video (just gray and black, weaving around, not static). I took it to Best Buy to the Geek Squad. Paid $24.95 to have it looked at. They call me a week later to say it will be $252 to fix it. Unfortunately, the new camcorders out there are about $250-$400 for a new mini-dv. So with tax time coming up, I guess I will have to decide on a new one. I'm afraid that if I fix the ZR85, that something else will go wrong. I already have $500 in this camcorder, plus the cost of a spare battery (battery life is iffy on ZR85), and 6 mini-dv tapes, and adding a $50 firewire port to my computer, which created videos that had warped sounding audio when trying to create the cool videos that Canon promised I could make..ugh.

So here comes Christmas, my daughters first one, and her birthday is next month. We will miss having both on video because of this, and It just makes me sick. I loved this camera, but a $500 investment should last longer than 22 months.

Bought this camera for my son about 1 1/2 years ago. Worked well for a year. Right before our vacation we experienced a problem where the camera would not connect with the computer. Canon's tech support determined it was a hardware problem with the camera. They charged me $200 for the repair. When I got the camera back, the rewind wouldn't work. I returned it to them and they fixed that free of charge. It is now 6 months later and the camera will not connect to the computer again. I plan to call them, but will not repair the camera if they charge me. I also will never buy another canon product if they charge me.

I bought the ZR85 about 10 months ago. I'm happy with the way it works. It has more features on it then I will ever use. The Basic features work perfect.

The factory battery died after about 5 months and would no longer take charge. That was a bummer.

I have would recomend this video camera.

I bought this recorder, and used it here and there for special occations, now the camera stopped working. Just a white screen to look at. I hear the camera just stop working, it shows on the lcd for about 10 secs then white. Worthless piece of equipment. Should of bought the exteneded warrenty, would of made my money back on that one. This baby is going to the bottom of the trach can. GO SONY

This cam works great and never had any problems with mine. Great deal even contains a microchip for color etc that only high end camcorders have but itsn't really mentioned.

2 star rating-BUT I don't have this particular item. I have a ZR60 and LCD screen suddenly went black. We have not used this camcorder that much over the last 3 years (have about 6-7 complete tapes) and it would cost over 200.00 to repair so the ZR85 was recommended for close to the cost of repair(the batteries and tapes would fit the same, etc). THANKS for the info on this camcorder! I think we will continue to look (maybe Sony?). Consumer reports says repairs are higher on the Canon's than any other camcorder....

I bought this camera about 21 months ago; I have only used it a couple of times but without a problem. When I tried to used it the other day I was able to record sound but no picture. I was prepared to buy a new camera, until I found that Canon has a repair notice on it for this problem. They will fix it free of charge even if out of warranty; I could not ask for more!

I bought the ZR90 about 2 year back when I had my first kid as I wanted to keep home videos of the kids. Frankly I am terribly dissappointed at at the quality of the pictures in the house with all the lights on in the house. My sons first birthday video's are all so dissapointingly dark. One mistake I did is not going to stored and checkign out the camera before I ordered it online. I suggest goin to a retailer and checking out the picture quality indoors before ordering it online.

Outside pictures in bright sunlight are okay. I am not a phony reviewer trying to trash the product. If you click on my name you will see all the other products I have reviewed.