My HD100U has a black line across the upper third portion of its footage
 

My HD100U has a black line across the upper third portion of its footage. This is overly apparent with a black background and poor lighting. You can see it in the linked photo the line runs across the top of the screen almost level with the singers eyes. I was shooting in 720p30. Any ideals on what this could be?


Screen capture

http://i70.photobucket.com/albums/i9.../blackline.jpg

I am buggered if i can see it. How large is the black line?

This is not good if it's consistently in all the footage you shoot. A few things to check:

- Did the line first appear at this particular shoot?
- Is the line apparent at all gain settings?
- Can you now reproduce the line at home or the office?

If the answer to the first question is yes and third no, then there was something at that shoot that was electrically interfering with the camera. This is not unheard of. Radio interference has very rarely disrupted video shoots of mine. One was in a building that had a poorly grounded cable TV DA system that got into the audio. Another was in a rock club where the PA system interfered with the video signal. Recently I did a shoot near a roof installed cell phone hub that disturbed the wireless mike system we were using. The worst problem I've ever had was in a major hotel where the electrical outlets carried FM radio which got into everything as the camera's AC adaptor did not have an FM filter. Fortunately I had enough battery power for the shoot. So far nothing has disrupted my HD-100, all my problems have been with other cameras.

If the answer to the third is yes then you need to go to your service center and get the camera fixed as this is a sign that something is going bad in the camera.

Ditto for the "I can't see it" remark

I couldn't see it either on my Gateway LCD.

David, REALLY dumb question: are you viewing the video on a CRT monitor? CRTs with tube made by Sony (Trinitron) such as some Dells, have two very fine wires mounted on the face of the tube. I believe these are for automatic degaussing but I could be mistaken. Could this be your issue?

Edit: No, the black line is in fact there. Actually, more like a black band. Looks like AC line noise, as if you were using an external recorder connected via analog and there was RF interference, possible from lighting dimmer packs. It IS there folks. It is located at the same level as the bottom of the front of the singer's bandana.

At first i thought it was the background then the line went across the talents head! Its not a dropout. Anybody knows what this is? I'm posting an enhanced image of David's frame.

I know it is really difficult to see in the screen capture.

I ran two cameras with identical settings and only one has this problem both had Dr100s attached to the shoe mount

I shot some additional test footage today and yes the line is still there but only in full auto mode and against a black background with poor lighting. The minute I switch from full auto mode I lose the band and get a SSE with 0 gain.

Fortunately I was able to hide the "line" in post production with color correction but I am still concerned about what the issue may be.

Thank you very much Ted.

David,

Did you shoot the same scene with tape? or just with the Firestore? If you did, did the same scene have the line too? I've heard some issues when shooting QT on the dr hd100.
I also heard the FS is susceptible to outside interference.

Ted

It was shot tapeless in mt2 format.

I was able to see the line on my laptop screen which isn't calibrated for video. The line really strikes me as some sort of interference or possible fault in the camera's imaging hardware. Does the line appear on both battery power or AC power? Unfortunately, I believe that the camera needs to go in for service if SSE is coming up in 0db.

The FireStore is a digital file recording machine where the work it does is mainly restricted to transferring the camera's m2t stream (transmitting thru the FireWire port) to the hard drive without a computer workstation intermediary. It can change the "wrapper" of an m2t file to work in Avid or FCP but that shouldn't affect the image already encoded in the data stream.

After more control test footage it seems as if the "line" interference once again is showing up primarily while the camera is in full auto mode and against a black background with poor lighting.

If it was my camera I'd live with it--I disagree with the other poster that you should take it to be fixed.

What about the SSE?

I am also wondering if it could possibly be a bad firewire cable which I will be replacing tomorrow.