I have a sony FX1 and for all that its worth i really like the camera. I do all my color correction in post and don't use any picture profiles (i might give it a shot one day). The biggest problem I am having is in areas of high contrast i see a distant jagged line (stair-step) effect. For instance, while shooting a wedding the wall is lite with a bright light that has a red gel, the grooms jacket is black, and on the top of his shoulder and head you can see the jagged effect when up against the red wall.

I read information about using CineForm and didn't know if this would actually fix this problem. I have tried deinterlacing the footage and it only changes a small amount. When shooting I do not see this happen so is there a way to avoid this when dumping it into the NLE?

I use Premiere Pro 2.0 and capture the HDV footage through firewire. I export to tape and then down convert it to SD to burn to DVD when finished.

Zach, I had similar issues with Premeire and FX1 and associate it with the down convert process. I found that when I down converted my final edit from HDV to DV .avi files in Premiere, best result was if I converted to progressive at that time. More recently, recommendations were made in this thread that help more in the down convert process.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?p=739136#post739136

Also you may find staying interlaced is the way to go. In any of your processes that a field order can be set, try reversing the field order, as that may resolve a problem

Finally, using an intermediate codec like Cineform will help resolve these problems. I've even tried using Cineform to convert the FX1 footage to 24p and it seems to come out well.

Thanks a ton. The jagged lines actually get better when i downconvert due to the resolution of the video is less, but they are definitely noticable while editing in HDV. I'm wondering if i should give the Magic Bullit plugin "deartifact" a try...i've heard of a few folks using that as well.

Premiere downsizes badly. Use another program to do the final downres.