I purchased a new Canon HV-10 three months ago. I shot 4 new mini cassettes (Fuji) worth of material, and none of it was any good. I was getting lines, masses of pixels, single pixels,
all in multiple colors. The pixels and lines would appear about every ten seconds. Making every shot unusable. I shot using a tripod, I tried every conceivable mode, or setting. The problem is easily noticeable in the small camcorder LCD. It's even more noticeable when the video is captured ( I use Video Vegas 7). The most severely pixeled clips will actually crash Vegas when I attempt to open them.

I eventually sent the camera off to the Canon Repair Center in California. I received the Canon HV-10 back last week. According to the repair document, Canon claimed to have fixed the problem. However, after shooting a new tape, in nice weather, the pixelation problem was still there!

I have owned many Canon Camcorders, and I have never had a problem before, nor have I ever had to send a Canon camcorder in for repair.

Has anyone ever seen a problem like this before?

Never heard of it, Canon is usually really good about fixing them...

Always run a head cleaning cassette for about five or six seconds in any new camcorder, before putting in that first tape. This practice will solve the vast majority of pixelation and image breakup problems that are associated with new camcorders.

I cleaned the heads, and according to the Canon Repair Center, they did too.
I just don't understand why they said they had fixed the problem, when they hadn't. When I sent the camera to them, I included a photo shot of a clip showing the pixel problem.

Sometime head clogs are not REAL head clogs. Speak to Canon about an error rate adjustment. JVC had this problem years back and it was all over the Usenet as a head clog issue. ALSO....the heads take about 10 hours of burnishing time before optimizing of the picture occurs.

I cleaned the heads, and according to the Canon Repair Center, they did too.
I just don't understand why they said they had fixed the problem, when they hadn't. When I sent the camera to them, I included a photo shot of a clip showing the pixel problem.

ALSO....the heads take about 10 hours of burnishing time before optimizing of the picture occurs.

My video is going to get better?? . . . . COOL!

it sounds so much like my canon xm2 problem before i used a sony tape at first and the same problem whenever there are movement i get pixelated and blocks of lines problem, sent for repair and they told me they change the play head, but same thing keep happening and they told me if have the same problem again they will charge me for the play head. so i decided to change my tape type to panasonic and it seems ok. but i still get the pixel once awhile and it disappeared after i clean the head... lots of nightmares and thats is why me using a sony cam now..

however i thought i am t he one person having this problem.

i also had same problem....record for 1~2hours continuously without stoping the tape...
it worked for me...after that.. i hope this helps

I'm about to buy a HV10 myself so I'm interested to hear from David to see if this problem was cleared up. Any news?