immediatly when i purchased this camcorder i noticed that after playing back the same section of video more than 2 or 3 times, the image became almost pixelated. i can describe it as 'half or 1/4 of the screen keeps playing w/out problems, while the other part will stop completely and be divided into small squares that change individually. also during this mess, the audio completely halts. Even with the higher quality MiniDV cassettes, it does this. this problem has rendered my camcorder almost useless to me. If this problem persists im going to sell it.