Piotr,

The V1E I received two day's ago, has S/N 1'211'705.

"As Sony Europe is near my home and my dealer, the cam was still worm"

I have at the moment not the proper equipment to check, if the issue has been solved

volki

Thanks Max; the flawed cameras serials were 1210001-1211330 ((mine was 1210377). Hopefully a new batch will arrive in Poland, as well.

Piotr,

this is something new. How do you know the batch number of the affected cameras? It sounds as if a new batch was free of the oil paint issue. Where have you got this information?
Or do you think if the firmware is installed in the factory before shipping makes any difference? Please elaborate what makes you believe that?
If this is any reliable, I will consider replacing my V1E to another V1E.

Btw in interlaced the cam produces really good images.

Zsolt,

The S/N range of the affected cameras was published half-offically on a reputable Dutch website: www.global-dvc.nl. Whether the new batch is free of the progressive softness is something I'd like to check myself, hence the anticipation of its arrival in Poland. The Prime Support is saying it is, while the "line flicker" can be dealt with by turning down the sharpness - but I'm sure you've also been written the same by them.

What is important is that the softness I still saw after my camera returned from servicing was simply the original softness it exhibited when purchased, as the Prime Support simply did NOT do anything with it. This clarification I only got later, after I already had returned the camera to my dealer. This is why I *suppose* Tony's unit exhibited the oil paint effect even after the "fix", because - just like mine - it *might* simply had not been fixed AT ALL.

All this speculation (and *nothing* more than that) has one very weak point, though: the NTSC units were never called back for servicing and always considered "fine" and "final", and yet we all saw the softness of the red shed's wall in 30p. This would inevitably indicate that the problem is hardware-related, and thus unfixable. Therefore, since now I know precisely what to look for, I guess my final test of a new V1E unit will be straightforward and simple: it either has no oil paint effect (and the line flicker can be minimized with compromizing sharpness), or it still is softer than interlaced, in which case I'm forgetting about switching back to the V1 once and for ever. Even with my A1 being broken, and out of service at the moment...

PS. Let's wait and see what Tony has to say about it! Tony, are you SURE they did anything with your camera? To my knowledge, the working fix was only available at Prime Support as of January 22th.

My V1E is back from Prime support. Fast job. It cames back after 2 days!

After a first quick view(only inside with rather low light) , it seems to me that "oil paint effect" is gone. The sharpness is the same both in 50i and 25p modes.
But as others told, horizontal lines ares still "flicking", and I have to set sharpness lower ( 3) to fully avoid it . Ans so, of course, the picture is less sharp!
Nethertheless, I'm happy with my 25p, it looks much better now.

Thanks for the feedback Odile! Please give us some more:) Especially about the oil paint effect; also which sharpness setting is a tolerable maximum with regards to the "line flicker".


I'll have a V1E for testing on Monday; will defiitely update you guys.

The place where "softness" clearly shows is the wood texture on the railing. The same "softness" is how you can tell the images I posted apart -- which are also of wood texture.

Which means -- if we are talking about softness of very fine detail -- there may NOW be no difference between between products. Likewise, with very thin horizontal lines, there may NOW be no noise difference between between products.

However, none of this tells us the softness/noise is related to hardware. It could be the parameters set in the firmware. To eliminate softness, Sony could adjust the frequency response to pass more fine detail -- which, of course, means more noise because noise IS simply "bad" high-frequency detail. Conversly, to eliminate noise, Sony could adjust the frequency response to cut fine detail. But, the image will be softer. Exactly the same relationship is found with DNR.

Nevertheless, there is a point where the optimum BALANCE will be found for a camera. There are two BBC reports that clearly indicate that Sony sets NORMAL to be at this balance. According to the BBC graphs -- "4" fully eliminates EE, but also reduces fine detail. And, we've seen "9" adds way too much EE. Thus, the acceptable range seems to be 5 to 7 or 8.

IMHO, Sony has defined the settings in Japan to provide the best overall balance. Unless you have more test equipment than Sony, it seems very risky to venture far from these.

One also needs to look at the video a generation or two down to see what setting is really correct. Are you going to film? To HD DVD? To Beta SP? To DV? To HDCAM? To DVCPRO HD? To DVD? Transfer to each of these may *differentially* reduce noise and/or detail.

Therefore, the service folks telling you to reduce Sharpness to "3" may be doing you a huge long-term disservice. Likewise, optimizing only ONE image aspect rather than finding a balance may not be the best tactic.

To understand why your line twitter issues are NOT with the camera, see my post:
How PsF video from the V1 is different than "p" or "F" video