I'm just as guilty, and I have plently of face prints on my screen to prove it . I probably have more than you because my CRT computer monitor tends to make things look nicer than they are in reality, unlike an LCD, so I stared even closer to the screen and soaked up lots of lovely raditation! You still can't beat CRT's for the overall image.

There should be some SDI portable devices coming onto the market relatively soon. All you need is an AJA analog-->SDI converter and one of these firestore like devices and you could certainly avoid the blockies.

Well, its the left part of the sky that looks blocky to me, at least on my LCD-screen.
Detail settings where at normal.

The water looks worse to me on my screen. Experiment with the detail setting and see what the max detail is that doesn't show artifacting in situations like this. You can always add sharpening in post.

btw, Pappas has a lot of beach footage and I don't see a whole lot of artifacts from either the JVC or Canon.

http://homepage.mac.com/WebObjects/F...cty=US&lang=en

I'll have to take a closer look at some of my footage.

I did run a few tests with a water fountain spraying into my pool, but I did not see any artifacts. I 'll have to freeze some frames and blow it up 200% and look closer.