Never store your camcorder with a tape in it. The tape can slack during transportation and cause tangling, which leads to head damage. It can also put flat spots on rubber drive parts.

Never store your camcorder with the battery attached. Even turned off, most camcorders draw a small current from the battery. This can reduce the time available when you need it, and if left on long enough may even damage the battery.

Be careful where your viewfinder is pointing. The focus lens in it not only focuses the image so you can see it clearly, it will focus the sun to a spot on the display. Remember what happens when you use a magnifying glass to focus the sun onto a piece of paper or plastic? Your viewfinder is no different, and may be damaged if the sun shines directly into it. The damage will range from melted spots around the edge of the display, to burns (spots & streaks) on the display itself.

Never leave your camera in a hot car. This is especially true in the Southwest. Temperatures inside a closed car in Arizona in the summer can approach 180 degrees, or more. Plastic parts melt. Lubricants soften and migrate to places that shouldn't be lubricated, and aging of electronic parts and batteries is accelerated.

Never take your Camcorder to the beach or other sandy location. The airborne sand will find it's way into the mechanism, lodging in the lubricants and between the tiny gear teeth and other critical areas. Repairing units that have gotten sand inside is very expensive, and often not economically feasable.

Resist the temptation to get that great shot of the whale at Sea World. All it takes is one drop of salt water on one of the circuit boards to destroy a Camcorder.

Never use a tape that has been damaged (fingerprints, wrinkles, wet, etc). Splicing video tape is not acceptable, and if done will usually damage video heads. If you see lines scrolling from top to bottom while playing a tape, it is probably wrinkled. Stop the tape at once and eject it, hopefully before the damage is done.

Do not store your Camcorder in a sealed plastic bag. A Ziploc bag is a good way to keep your equipment dry during a sudden downpour or other wet event, but remove it as soon as possible to insure it can dry completely. 

Avoid the use of the adapters that allow you to play VHS-C format tapes in a regular VCR. They frequently damage the tapes, and those damaged tapes may cause problems when put back in the Camcorder. Use the Camcorder and supplied cables to play back it's tapes.