How to view hours of use on AG-1980?
 

I've been searching for a bit and have failed to come up with an answer to this question.
I have a used Panasonic AG-1980 and was wondering if there was a way to "enable" the hours of use it has seen?
I have a service manual and it mentions this in the normal maintenance of the machine, but I have yet to find a way for the machine to display its hours of use.

I don't even know if it keeps track of this.

I signed up specifically to post this because I found most all the useful info I have found so far has been from this site.

-Jim

Welcome to the site. :)

Off-hand, no, I don't know what it would be. I would do just as you have done -- refer to the service manual.

While it's a safe bet that most professional grade equipment does keep track of hours of use, it's not a guarantee. This is further complicated by the fact that AG-1980P was sometimes viewed as a "budget" professional video deck, as opposed to far fancier or specialized models. For example, this VCR had a consumer feature: an analog TV tuner, with a remote control. (Though oddly still not considered "prosumer" gear, like comparable JVC branded equipment.) Sometimes these higher-end professional features, like logging usage, are missing on the budget/prosumer gear.

In short, even I'm not 100% that it does record this information.