I've had my HV20 for about 3-4 weeks. My initial video shots were outside or in very bright situations. I was blown away with the quality. Well, over the Christmas holiday I did a lot of indoor filming. The room lighting ranged from plenty of ambient light from sunlight coming in through windows to rooms with multiple light sources. Some of the lights sources were dimmed, but none of these rooms were what I would consider very low light.
When I later connected my HV20, via HDMI, to my Mitsubishi WD-65745 HDTV, I could not believe how horrible the quality was compared to the footage shot in bright light. It was so bad I thought there was something wrong with the camera and took it back and exchanged it for another HV20. Well the new one is no different. So, I started doing searches and found several forums, like this one, where people uploaded their low-light footage, discussed how awesome the HV20 was in low light, etc.
I was very impressed with what I saw in the various footage posts. The problem I am seeing with my shots is the video is so low quality it has an almost mosaic look to it. Basically it is very blocky and very grainy. Now these results were in fully automatic mode, "out of the box" settings. I also tried 24P, but when I try to move the camera, the video stutters/skips in the viewfinder and in the resulting video. So, at this point it is obvious my approach, and lack of knowledge, are the problem and not the camera. Also, I have only connected the camera to my large HDTV. Maybe that compounds the problem?
So, I think I need two things. A couple of links to some 101 camera theory resources and some recipes (manual settings for the HV20) for a few given scenarios. I've tried adjusting the shutter speed and some other "settings" that have been suggesting, but I am clearly missing the big picture here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
When I later connected my HV20, via HDMI, to my Mitsubishi WD-65745 HDTV, I could not believe how horrible the quality was compared to the footage shot in bright light. It was so bad I thought there was something wrong with the camera and took it back and exchanged it for another HV20. Well the new one is no different. So, I started doing searches and found several forums, like this one, where people uploaded their low-light footage, discussed how awesome the HV20 was in low light, etc.
I was very impressed with what I saw in the various footage posts. The problem I am seeing with my shots is the video is so low quality it has an almost mosaic look to it. Basically it is very blocky and very grainy. Now these results were in fully automatic mode, "out of the box" settings. I also tried 24P, but when I try to move the camera, the video stutters/skips in the viewfinder and in the resulting video. So, at this point it is obvious my approach, and lack of knowledge, are the problem and not the camera. Also, I have only connected the camera to my large HDTV. Maybe that compounds the problem?
So, I think I need two things. A couple of links to some 101 camera theory resources and some recipes (manual settings for the HV20) for a few given scenarios. I've tried adjusting the shutter speed and some other "settings" that have been suggesting, but I am clearly missing the big picture here. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
