Tough One-I challenge you! Does anyone know of any free service (Media Library or something) in New York City where one can watch their own mini DV tapes?

I don’t think so, but you could always post on craigslist and hope that someone with access hooks you up. It’s worth a try.

The only other thing I can think of is to find a place with a good return policy and buy a cheapo miniDV cam, and just plug it into your TV, and return it when you’re done.

I’m not too familiar with video camera tape formats, but I remember once using an adaptor that looked like a regular VHS tape but you could insert your video camera tape into it, and then watch your tape using any VCR (I’m not sure what type of video camera tape it was, it may or may not have been Mini-DV).

That sounds like VHS-S or VHS-C or something. I think some high 8 formats used to work that way.

miniDV is a digital format, so there aren’t any adapters that would allow you to play them on an analog device (like a VCR). You need some sort of digital video deck, or you can use a DV camera for playback.

Yeah… I just got stuck without my camera and DV tapes I need to watch. I don’t work on DV too much. Decks are way too expensive so not really practical unless you have you are setting up an editing suite. I got my camera back now… the question is academic… but it would still be great to have an answer for future reference.

RE: the Mini DV to VHS thing, i was curious and just googled it- here’s a thread to support you:

http://forums.cnet.com/5208–7594_102–0.html?forumID=59&messageID=1705107&threadID=153279

Anyway, I don’t have a VHS player so I’m not really concerned about that. But to take on that question- Yeah, I think you would need to pass through something- no adapter will handle that. They do make I think a VHS to DV kind of pass through device that hooks up to your computer- though this may be only so that you an encode a VHS signal.

Seriously, I wonder if somewhere in this city there are public Mini Dv decks. Maybe not.

Try looking into film societies or independent filmmakers clubs and things like that. Or even artists’ collectives. They have a couple in San Fran for print makers since their equipment is very expensive, and I imagine they would have something similar for filmmakers. I think you might have to give up the idea of “free” though, just because DV decks and equipment is very expensive to purchase and maintain, so I would imagine at the very least you would have to cough up an hourly fee or maybe monthly dues.