Panasonic PV-DV203 Sir, This is three year old camcorder which has seen little use. Will play, record, rewind for only a few seconds, then red power light flashes and unit shuts down. Played with cassette door and it started working again. Today, the same problem has occured. Would greatly appreciate your help with this problem. Thanks.

I had the same problem and took the camera into a Panasonic certified repair shop. They did a thorough cleaning, then said something was broken in the tape function and it would cost $300+ to fix it. I declined to have it fixed, but the cleaning seems to have done the trick, because it's been working fine ever since (even though the repair guy assured me that was not the problem and I needed to go for the more expensive fix)! I did read online that a good cleaning was a potential fix for the problem, and it seems to have worked! I wasn't able to achieve the same results with my own cleaning cassette, I think it really had to be taken apart and cleaned thoroughly, which could probably be done by any camera repair shop. Good luck!

I had the same probelm with "Will only record or playback for a few seconds. Then 2 red flashes from the power light. Lights keep flashing on/off for a minute or so, then power cuts off completely." on my pv203.  I was able to remove the plastic shield cover that loads the tape and noticed that one of the hinges that is part of the tape ejection was off.  It was throwing off the reel sensor.   My camcorder works fine now.  Hope this helps!

The reel sensor is the problem of your camera...most of that problem is a poor connection of reel sensor to the main board socket or connector....it is need to be service now your camera...