I admit, DSE and Boyd were right
 

I have been doing lots of shooting and experimenting with HDV and downconverting in-camera to SD. When I posted pics here of fine detail showing HDV was more 'blocky', this was the truth. I think this was a case of HDV being slightly inferior to SD Dv.

However, I have been doing more shooting, and yes I can see the difference that HDV makes in SD. And I like it! It seems to come out mostly in shots with strong light/dark contrasts, leaves against a blue sky background is a common example.

However it gets stranger. I was shooting HDV at an airshow yesterday in bright miday sunlight with ND2 on, I kept the exposure on the sky, so the ground looks a little dark. The sky and airplanes in it look great, but there's lots heavy noise in the sky, and the noise is not from my gain setup. Is this an HDV 'thing.' I have never seen this kind of thing before.

Any learned medical opinions would be welcome on this perplexing condition.

[Beckenham?!!? anywhere near Albemarle Road??]

It sounds like the problem is a consequence of Sony's EIP (Enhanced Image processing). It sometimes seems to regard some darker areas of the sky as 'shadow' areas and applies selective image processing to that area in an apparent effort to increase shadow detail. Obviously this is not desirable in this situ but i don't think there's a lot you can do about it. Several people have reported this sort of thing on another Sony cam especially when using a polariser.

rgds

Hey Stu, I am just off Annerly Road on the other side:) How is life in Albermarle Rd these days, if you are you there?

Out of interest, what camera was having the same problem, I must admit it's the strangest thing I have ever seen, some people might even call it 'filmic'. I looks like really heavy gain on the sky, much more gain than the ZX1 is capable of. I am trying to figure what was triggering it, because I was not using a polariser, but I was underexposing to bring out the blue.