These miniDV cameras sure are fragile

[aixa at mac.com]

...or maybe it's just the Canon ZR-10.  My school received two of them 
in December 2000 and we've had a lot of problems with both of them.  
One is from the different lubricants from the different brands of 
tapes.  By the time we learned that we should use one brand, it was too 
late: we already had too much footage on several different brands.

Also, we learned the hard way that the camera has to be kept in a 
ziplock bag, but we still have the moisture problem if the camera, 
while transporting the camera in wet weather inside of  the ziplock bag 
(the type with the sliding plastic piece that closes the bag).

Is the Canon ZR-10 more fragile than the newer models or are all the 
Canon ZR cameras this fragile?  Or are all of these miniDV cameras this 
fragile?  I never heard of these problems with other types of video 
cameras.

Dan