View Full Version : brown lines across the screen


Claudio Paroli
September 10th, 2012, 06:24 PM
Hi, hope someone can help...
I got two thick horizontal brown lines moving slowly down the screen in a tungsten lit indoor shoot (see http://tvi.com.au/downloads/lines.jpg). The lines weren't visible during the shoot. My XDCAM EX3 (in full manual mode) had given a strange white balance reading, much redder than expected, when preparing for the shoot. Twice. I went with it because I'd been wrong before in judging colour temperature.
Fixing them has been hell in post.
I tested the camera afterwards in all light conditions and all the settings I could think of and have been unable to reproduce the problem.
Any ideas as to what might have caused it?
Many thanks
Claudio

Allan Black
September 11th, 2012, 12:39 AM
Welcome to the forum Claudio. Was this some sort of interference? Were you running on battery or AC power?

If AC, and you see those lines again, try swapping to battery or change to another outlet, especially if it's an old house with very old wiring.
The earth might be stuffed.

Cheers.

Alister Chapman
September 12th, 2012, 10:27 AM
Most likely a fluorescent or other discharge light spilling into the scene somewhere.

John DuMontelle
September 13th, 2012, 10:15 AM
Add my vote to possible fluorescent light being the culprit.

The part about the odd white balance along with the lines are what lead me to agree with Alister's diagnosis.

Thomas Nibler
September 14th, 2012, 02:57 PM
I know that problem too! (even without fluorescent light!)
My theory is, that you used a fast shutterspeed; that way you get these brown lines as a result of an missmatch between the flicker-frequency of the lightsource (50hz in Europe, 60 in US) and the Shutter / CMOS-Rolling Shutter-problem. (That Part of the Image is "darker", in wich the light was flickering.... keep in mind that the cmos-sensor is not read completely at one time, but line after line; check this out: CMOS Rolling Shutter (http://dvxuser.com/jason/CMOS-CCD/) (about partial exposure) )
Also make shure you have set your camera to the correct region (PAL or NTSC) you are filming in.
Whenever i run into that problem, it helps to set Shutter:off or try to find the specific shutter speed that matches.