NO PICTURE WHEN I TURN ON MY CAMERA TO THE RECORDING MODE I DO NOT GET OR SEE A PICTURE IN THE VIEWFINDER OR ON THE LCD DISPLAY SCREEN,I DO SEE A PICTURE IN THE PLAY MODE.

I can't believe it! My camera was doing the exact same thing and I read this solution and thought "Sure, take my camera and beat. Thanks for the help." Then I figured what could a little whack with a pencil hurt and the picture actually came back on!!!! I'm so happy. Thanks a million for this very simple fix.

I had this with my Panasonic NV-DS60. I thought it would be the ribbon cables not making good connections from the camera lens electronics because I had a similar problem with another camera. So I took the whole thing apart and disconnected and reconnected the ribbon cables - unfortuantely this didn't work! So I thought there may be another connection I couldn't see so I tapped around the lens area with a hard object (tip of a screwdriver) and it worked! It may be well worth you tapping the case in this way (without pulling the camcorder to bits) on the top, about an inch back from the front of the lens a couple of times. I'm not an expert, but it worked for me! Obviously, don't hit it hard enough to damage it. Good Luck

I hve a dcr-trv17e and I had same problem. I gave a tap on its top of its lense and it really worked.. Thanks for this excellent solution!!!!.
I was waiting for months to find a fix the problem!..
Thank you all...!!!!

I'm not in europe any longer so i could not take advantage of the free repair for the same problem on my mv600i, but me having no idea what I was doing decided to try what acegoodbloke tried. I unscrewwed the front section(lense section) after taking off that pannel I turned on my cam again to record mode and magically it was working,I carefully put the front panel back on and yep it still worked. I didnt even touch any cables or inner parts...so i'm just guessing its those cables at the front that are very touchy? stoked though, now i can sell it before its broke again :) never again am I wasting soo soo much money on something that decreases value as much as this camera did!

Oh my god it worked for me as well i have a sony dcr pc101e and today i had the same problem and after reading this thread i tried to give it a few taps around the lens and it started to re gain a picture after one final firm tap it came on fully. thankyou for this advise it just made my xmas cos now i can record the kids on xmas morning. thankyou santa haha

NV-DV65 every things ok but LCD diplay not display on record mode and playback mode View finder is ok

I have a sony handy cam DCR-HC42. When I turn on the camera I can see through the view finder, but if I open the screen there is no picture just a black screen on both the view finder and the screen. If I close the screen the picture appears back in the viewfinder.

If u cannot record .... the problem is in the "mode" switch if u can record, its a chip problem