On Tue, 29 Jan 2002 11:16:25 GMT, xyz@hotmail.com (xyz) wrote:

>What would be an example of a "busy" scene prone to the stair-stepping
>effect you mentioned concerning the TRV30?

Bare tree branches against sky, almost any exterior building
or building detail, rock walls with layers (we have a lot of
glens here), fall leaves floating on water, reeds and stems
of plants, bright edges of cars - about 1/2 of what one can
point a camcorder at will show these "flapping on
scan-lines" and stair-stepping (travelling saw-tooth) edge
effects with the megapixel one-chip video cameras. In
addition, the sensitivity is so low with these megapixel
cameras that "busy grain" noise shows in even-tone areas
even in bright light. The softer-image non-megapixel PC9
shows fewer of these effects (as do most of the 3-chippers),
though all show stairstepping on near horizontal lines.
In addition to good image sharpness (with minimal
oversharpening "halos" along contrasty edges), good color
(neutral balance, good saturation and purity, and freedom
from spurious color in textured areas), good picture
contrast and brilliance (with "open", detailed shadow areas
and highlights that contain detail instead of being just
white, but with good, clean, neutral blacks and whites), I
also want image "quietness" with motion (the relative
absence of spurious image motion effects that are not part
of the subject motion - though it appears impossible to
expect the complete absence of near-horizontal-line
stairstepping in video) in a good video image. With one-chip
Mini-DV camcorders, there is a trade-off between resolution
and spurious (and very unpleasant and distracting) motion
effects; with the 3-chip camcorders, these effects vary
from barely acceptable (but much better than with the
megapixel one-chippers), to fairly acceptable (but worse
than with the best analogue cameras). Much as I like the
size/weight/image-sharpness/color-quality of the Sony
megapixel cameras, and fine as the image can be when their
picture ill effects don't show, when these ill effects are
evident, they look so bad that the footage is unusable.
This is about 1/2 the time, for me...