On Tue, 8 Oct 2002 08:18:44 -0700, "Paul Tauger" wrote:

>Please bear with me on this -- my VX2000 was a VERY expensive purchase for
>me.
>
>I've gotten it and it is, indeed, wonderful, particularly in its low light
>performance.
>
>I've noticed, though, that I still get some of the stair-step artifacting on
>strong, thin diagonal lines which were typical of my previous TRV-20. Is
>this a problem with this particular unit, or is it just endemic to miniDV?
>I've never seen it on any of the DV-shot reality shows, e.g. Amazing Race.
>
>It's not as bad as my older consumer camera, and seems to be more a problem
>in low light than well-lit scenes.

Read DMcC's response, above. But having owned both the
PC100 (same imager as the TRV20) and the VX2000, I can
say that motion-artifacting of all types is considerably
lower in the VX2000 than with the TRV20 when shooting
the same material in the same lighting (try shooting
a clapboard-sided house with roof shingles that have
contrasting edges with both, hand-held - one will drive
you totally nuts, the other only partially so...;-).
Near-horizontal line stairstepping is the one artifact
that is quite present in all Mini-DV (D25) formats and
cameras, unfortunately, and it is exaggerated when
increasing the sharpening (a good compromise for me for
most things is "+1" sharpening in the custom controls,
but when shooting buildings or contrasty bare-stemmed
plant masses, I sometimes lower it. Shooting in lower
contrast lighting also reduces the effect. BTW,
lowering the shutter speed below 1/60th will increase
the stairstepping effect, since one field is dropped,
increasing the "step height"...