On Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:18:07 -0800, Steve Mobia wrote:

>Is it just my camera (Sony P-100) or does all consumer digital video
>look fuzzy and full of stepstep like distortions? When take pictures of
>anything with a solid line or edge, I get diagonal break up and
>strobing. I thought
>that DV was superior to Hi-8 but this picture looks worse than VHS!
>
>Steve

We have corresponded about this, and without having tried
one, and with only having seen frame-grabs (not still-photo
images) from megapixel one-chippers, it appears that the
video image quality of these has been badly compromised to
improve the virtually-useless still-photo capability. Gross
stairstepping in megapixel one-chip video cameras appears
to make their video output pretty unacceptable... I guess
in the DV image-quality hierarchy, one would place at the
bottom end both D8 (for its generally low resolution) and
megapixel-chip DV (for its excessive stairstepping); next
up would be the better standard-pixel-count one-chip
Mini-DV camcorders; next up would be the low-end 3-chip
Mini-DV camcorders; above that would be the better 3-chip
Mini-DV and low-end DVCam camcorders; followed by the
REALLY 'spensive and huge stuff...;-) So-so image-quality
level Hi-8 fits somewhere around the bottom end of the DV
range, with the best Hi-8 fitting somewhere around the
mid-level of 3-chip Mini-DV. VHS is off the bottom end
of this scale, except for the very best of it...
If you move from a good VHS camcorder, you will need to go
to one of the better one-chip Mini-DVs to see a very
noticeable improvement in image quality, and spend about
$12-1500. If you move from a good Hi-8 (Sony TR-700 or
TR-101 or better), you will need to spend about $2500 in
Mini-DV to improve significantly on the image quality.
The mfgrs. have sold many on the "DV is better" idea,
but it is not always true - though there is still the DV
generation loss (or lack thereof...) advantage, which
is significant, even if the image-quality isn't always
better...