My partner and I were fiddling on the beach with our new A1 this evening, seeing what it is capable of over-exposing into the sun as it was setting, and noticed vertical lines appearing from over-bright light sources. Here's a clip I took as it was getting dark on the road just up from the beach on +6 gain, and the lines can be seen again.

Is this something I need to work around (i.e. a limitation of the format), being careful not to overexpose bright light sources, is it a question of settings being up the pole, or is there a problem with my camera?

http://www.thinkteam.co.za/vertical.mov

BTW - we were on 25f, auto white balance, +6 gain

That's "vertical smear", and it's typical behavior for any CCD image sensor, not just HDV camcorders.

So *that's* what vertical smear is then... Is it a live with it situation, or how do people handle it, or lessen its effects?

1. Live with it.
2. Avoid having bright point sources of light in the shot.
3. Make believe you planned it that way, by using a multipoint star filter on the lens.
4. Use a camera with a CMOS imager instead of a CCD. CMOS chips exhibit far less vertical smear.

Agree............the CMOS chips in my HV-10 exhibits little smear. The CCD chips in my XH-A1 and my XL2 display the usual CCD vertical lines.

NOTE: Be careful of reflections from water and chrome objects such as car bumpers. Use a polarizer filter for the above.

1. Live with it.
2. Avoid having bright point sources of light in the shot.
3. Make believe you planned it that way, by using a multipoint star filter on the lens.
4. Use a camera with a CMOS imager instead of a CCD. CMOS chips exhibit far less vertical smear.