I thought my CCDs were failing
 

Last night I transferred some footage from my MX500 onto CD in SVCD format and it came out very nicely.

It was footage of an autogyro flying against a clear blue sky but when I saw it on my 29" TV set I was shocked to notice a dim vertical band near the left of the frame.

It was clear that the dim area was in all shots and showed up quite markedly against the blue sky. Changes in zoom setting didn't affect the apperance, size or position of the band at all so I was getting rather worried that it was a fault with the optics or CCDs in my camera.

I should point out at this stage that I was viewing this footage at night and my TV is in a dimly lit room.

After worrying all night that I might be up for an expensive repair bill I decided to watch the disk again this morning.

I breathed a very loud sigh of relief when i saw that the cause of the dim band was a stripe of dust that I'd missed when cleaning the TV screen a couple of days ago.

The effect of this dusty stripe wasn't apparent on regular broadcast material but the lovely clear blue from my MX500 really threw it into contrast.

Now I'm happy again and, with the offending dust wiped clear, the video I took looks even better :-)

I use Windex and newspaper to clean my TV. Works well.

lol...Frank just couldn't stand letting a thread go by without offering a tip! j/k :)

That's what makes these boards great....newspaper, huh? gotta' try that...

Newspaper is a great 'cleaning rag' for glass and mirrors. Be careful though, some of the new TVs specifically recommend you DO NOT use Windex and such. It can damage a protective film they have applied to the screen. RTFI2 (Read the flippin' instructions; twice!) will save you.

Kinda like watching a grown man cry a few years back when he applied regular car wax to his new car that had this newfangled 'clear coat' stuff. Scratched his entire hood up and his corneas from rubbing his eyes while he cried. Apparently the few places his tears hit the Corvette, the scratches were diminished. ; )