In the excitement of my find, I did not realize that the VTR requires an adapter to play back Mini-DV tapes: A Mini-DV to DVCPRO Cassette Adapter. Looks like Panasonic made two models: AJ-CS455 ...

Yes I know a camcorder would do heh. But not in this case. A friend of mine has to work away from his family and was looking to get them a camcorder. Neither of the kids nor his wife is going to ...