On Sun, 25 Mar 2001 20:14:22 GMT, nujuko@utu.REMOVE.fi (Nuutti Koskinen) wrote:

>Seems like my few days old Sony vx2000 just developed two
>hot pixels. I tested it right after receiving it (by putting
>the lens cap on & turning gain all the way up & lowering the
>shutter speed) and found nothing but random noise. However,
>last night I was shooting at a night club, trying out the
>vast features of the camera. When I reviewed the footage,
>I could clearly see two bright spots on screen whenever I
>had used a lower shutter setting.
>
>The bad pixels are not very serious, since at 1/50 shutter
>and +18dB gain, it would be very hard to notice them if I
>didn't know where to look at. But lowering the shutter speed
>makes them very visible; at 1/3 sec shutter, they shine like
>two bright stars and it doesn't really matter whether the gain
>is set at 0 or 18 dB.
>
>While I'm not too enthusiastic about the <1/50 sec shutter speeds,
>they might be a handy feature to use sometimes. But those two
>bad pixels make it quite annoying!
>
>So I wonder what is the official position of Sony regarding
>hot pixels. How visible they need to be before Sony agrees to
>fix them under warranty? I worry that the camera might develop
>more of these (as all CCDs tend to do when they age) or that
>they might become more visible...

I'm surprised you did not see them in the first trial, and
that you see them at 0db gain... Are you sure they do not
move as you move the camera? Or that they are not caused
by dust on the lens (putting on the lens cap will tell you
this...;-) I have two VX-2000s - one shows no hot pixels;
the other shows two only at the slowest two shutter speeds
at +18db, which I consider acceptable. I would not consider
these acceptable at 0db and 1/50th or 1/60th, though.
Can the camera be exchanged? (Many dealers here will
exchange a defective camera during the first week...)