Does AV playback lessen MiniDv quality ?

[mjw123]

I've recently taken delivery of a Panasonic 3CCD GS230 camcorder as a replacement for my broken JVC GRD93.

I really like everything about the panasonic until I tried to playback some test footage through my samsung 32" LCD. I was shocked how poor it was, it looked pixelated, noisy, over exposed you name it. I was expecting near DVD quality. . The footage was both outdoor and in.

Then I thought does it look so bad because i'm playing it back through the Analogue AV cable into the TV?.....is this plausable ?

Normally i'd only ever see footage after it has been burned from my PC onto a DVD and played back digitally. I guess I can't see it digitally directly on the LCD.

What do people feel is the reality here ? - Surely a 3CCD camcorder can't be so poor, my JVC seemed much better. I'm hoping it's the AV streaming and not the camcorder.

TIA,
Mike

[senu]

Mike
Im a little puzzled. there is really no good reason why AV (composite) playback to a TV should be poor.
In fact it is streaming at such high data rates it should be better than DVD
Playback is usually via this method unless you have the ( better ) option to use S-video
I have (2) HDV camcorders which I play via component . The HD PQ is understandably great but going down to using AV isnt terrible. Before that I had ( still have ) a 3ccd panasonic ( MX 500) which as an SD camcorder was capable of very colourful clear images even via AV although I often used s-video

Its the cable the culprit or is there a setting on your TV menu that is the cause. ?? Sometimes a wrong setting can result in this scenario.
Im assuming the playback on the camcorders LCD is satisfactory
If so is there a setting on the camcorders AV out that is the problem??
Try capturing 5 min on the PC: is it any good?
If not it raises the question of a faulty camcorder, dirty heads( unlikely as it is new), damaged tape( unusual) .....

[mjw123]

Cheers Senu - I've tried it on my 28" Philips CRT and it is slightly better although still not as good as i'd hoped. It's fine on the Camcorder LCD but obviously massively smaller area so quality issues hard to detect.

I'll see what it's like on the PC. The Acid test is the burn to DVD and then playback and compare to. Not the start i'd hoped for for what is meant to be a pretty decent unit

[senu]

I hope it goes well
but
The AV TV playback should always be pristine and if this poor playback persists you may have to take it (the camcorder) back unless you can identify another source of the problem

With "proper" video editing , a TV type monitor is often used to view the edit in progress as the acid test of how it should look
I don't think (it is right that ) you should need to wait for a finished DVD to monitor how good your camcorder footage is

If it looks acceptable on the camcorders LCD ,( you should see at least some of those pixellation ect) then it is quite possible that a part or all of the camcorders playback electronics via AV may be faulty ( or cable, no good) .

This may not affect Firewire transfer and that would explain why PC footage is good

Viewing a finished DVD is to see how well the original footage quality has been preserved by editing and encoding from DV AVI to mpeg2

Have you tried playing anything else via your LCD TVs composite AV input?

[mjw123]

Thanks Senu - i'll try and take a couple of pics of the footage paused on the LCD and see if it coveys the dissapointing quality.

I know LCD's can exaggerate quality issues but i have to say i was somewhat underwhelmed to say the least !

I may be wrong but it feels like a step backward in pic quality from my grd93

[senu]

We'll see.

Older LCDs only exaggerate poor PQ from suspect terrestrial sources. Newer ones are more able ( up to a point)

My Phillips ( and Samsung ) LCDs HDTVs play DVDs, Sky , Freeview , Good Terrestrial and camcorder footage (HDV and SD) very well without pausing for breath