I have a Pansonic AFX8. I've used it on and off for over 2 years to film friends and it just recently stopped working. It used to work fine, but now, I will pull the start switch and it will turn on for a few seconds, then stop.
The B&W CRT monitor turns on for 10 seconds and then shuts off. During that short time, none of the playback buttons work, but I can press buttons such as the date/time displays and they will show.
During the 10 seconds, you cannot eject the tape.
Click
here for a link to a video of it.
Hope this can be fixed, love this camera...