Intermittent dead pixel????
 

While shooting a wedding Friday, I noticed a green dot in the center of the screen of my DSR250. It lasted a while, then when I started shooting again after a break of approx. 45 minutes (switched to another camera), the dot had disappeared. Another break of 60 minutes (dinner), and the dot returned.

Shot something yesterday.... no dot.

What the heck?!?!? Can a pixel work and then not work back and forth? What would it cost to have this fixed?

Whats the dot recorded on the tape?
or did it only show on the cameras LCD Monitor/Viewfinder?

Camera temperature has something to do with it. I have a hot pixel on my DSR-300 and when cold, the pixel shows up only at max gain. If I run the camera for a few hours, the pixel will show up at 0 gain. DSR-300's do get warm as do PD-150's if run long enough.

What do you do then? Switch to another camera? What if you're in the middle of recording an event? Does your PD150 have this issue as well?

The odd part is that the temperature was very even inside the room I was operating in. I had only been runing the camera for one or two hours as well.

Recorded on the tape, alas.

It'll be a stationery dot on the image then. You could trry to mask it with a clear frame with a dark dot in the exact spot.

Happened to me once. A tiny spot of grease on my wide-angle caused a flare spot that really spoilt a lot of my outdoor, intothesun footage. So I made up a soft-edged mask and colour-coded it to suit. Took hours.

Worked very well indeed, and has taught me to be very careful indeed with lens cleaning, aperture selection, focal lengths and hoods.

tom.

Hate to say this, Mike is correct. Camera temperature effects the appearance of a dead pixel in the CCD block. You most likely will have to place another block in the unit or find a repair shop that MAY mask the dead pixel via a mapping device. If it is visible at 0 gain, it will have to be replaced.


LOU

Dare I ask... how much will this cost me?