In lowlight there are these consistent vertical bands. Do you get these in your camcorder? I've had CMOS camcorders/helmet cams but this seems too even. Shot in HDV24pf.

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/6696/lowlightbandinggj4.jpg
http://img352.imageshack.us/img352/9829/lowlightbanding3ab3.jpg

A clip, watch the left side.

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=TDTWL87B

sorry mike, but i dont see any vertical banding.
enjoy
fabrizio

Mike, I can't see them either. Perhaps it's something you can see on your monitor, but it's not translating in these pix. If it's the kind of banding that was pretty obvious in the HV10, I don't see those to nearly the same degree in the HV20. I think part of it is inherent in the CMOS sensors technology.

I just DLed the clip and watched it on my PC monitor but I didn't see any banding, either...

i would expect that kind of banding in a HV10, but not a HV20. interesting.

Mike, I can see those vertical bands. Some are just dark grey and some are blue. I could even spot them in Maximilian's low light clips (the street shot with the car passing by). It's the same same effect that appears in the HV10's low light footage, though it looks not as bad, kind of lighter and smoother. But it's still there, unfortunately. Seems like Canon could improve, but not get completely rid of the problem.

Strange - am I the only one to notice them, besides Mike?

Glen, Ken, Fabrizio, and Glen,

Seems the JPEGs I uploaded got squished horizontally by imageshack, so you can't see the banding there. But the video should have at least two prominent bands with a mix of blue and black ... it's like a vertical noise line. My monitor is a wide 1440x900 lcd so it may be hidden depending on resolution/display technology? In a way I envy you for not being able to see it. I'm going to feed the component out to an infocus 4805 (EDTV) maybe it won't show up there. 8-)

Jason and Enea,

It's not nice to notice it but it's good to know that its known and an improvement over the HV10. I wonder if those bands mark boundaries on the CMOS chip (I kind of imagine it looks like a very small solar panel or something).

I know exactly what you're talking about. I had them appear on my couch pattern in lowlight. I got rid of them pretty much by switching to 24p mode, lowering contrast and sharpness.

Tony,

That was shot in 24p. I'll try adjusting contrast and sharpness when its dark again. This is good, we're compiling tricks to optimize the image out of our camcorder!