Black Grain? Help
 

I was testing outside footage shot on my GL1 and upon playback when watching on tv, I noticed what I describe as "black grain jumping around" on the edges of bright or white things, such as white chairs, or the clouds against the blue sky. Its like pepper flickering. Makes no difference with Frame or Normal, and with ND Filter on/off. I was shooting in Auto Exposure. Is this a case of wrong settings, or is something going bad?

Fly or Gnat on the lense?
 

Might it have been a fly or gnat on the lense? Just proposing the simple answer beforethe technical wizzards come in with the good answers.

jason

Was it only on your tv? What about playback to your computer?

Grain
 

I brought the footage into FCP and it is on the footage, not just the tv. I guess I can describe it as "noise" When it shows on the TV it jumps around. I can only notice it mostly on the white areas in the footage

That sounds kinda odd, can you take a screenshot or post a sample video?

What were the shooting conditions (e.g., light level, atmosphere, etc.) and what are the exposure settings the camera used for the video (gain, f-stop, shutter.).

Is it painfully obvious, or a subtile effect many viewers would not notice if they were not looking for it. It may be an artifact of the compression/decompression used in DV.