What if the camera fails but you still have footage to capture?
What if you need to log and capture tapes but you also need to get some B-roll footage on a short time schedule? Which do you do first when instead, someone is log and capturing tapes while you get your extra footage?
One alternative is buying a very cheap DV camera from BestBuy and using that as a deck.
One other potential problem is that you limit yourself to Mini DV’s. With a full size deck, you get the extra option of DVCAM or DVDCPro.