OK, more interesting information: First, I looked at the auction photos again and I realized that I overstated the degree of evidence that this thing was working before shipment. I notice that the image shown is very blurry. It does not seem to have the bands of noise but it is not certain. I also noticed in my playing with the camera that focusing the lens didn't seem to make any difference in the image. Not only was it noisy but always blurry. So, I opened up the camera itself. I discovered that the CCD had a light blue IR cut filter glued to the top and that this filter had some kind of residue on BOTH the outside and the CCD-facing surfaces which made it very clouded. I was able to clean the front surface but I could not clean the inner one. Given that this sale was as-is, no returns, I took the risk, cut through the glue beads, and popped the filter off the top of the CCD. Thank God, it came off cleanly and indeed there is another piece of glass under it covering the sensor and that is clear. I have yet to reassemble and try the camera again but I suspect that this will make the image much better - although of course it will not do anything about the banding. Any idea how this would have happened? It almost looks to me like the glue used to attach the filter eventually outgassed and clouded the filter. That seems strange, though, unless someone modified the camera to add this filter and used the wrong kind of adhesive. Last night I removed the main board from the control unit and looked for any evidence of failed capacitors, debris, flux residue, etc. I also inspected the several reworks to make sure they were not damaged. I re-seated all connectors and socketed ICs. No difference in system behavior= .. I scoped the power supply input to the main board (+5 and +12V from an SMPS which is an external module) and it is clean. There is a DC-DC converter implemented with discrete components and a transformer on the main board - I have not yet verified whether that is working properly. The image on the screen has a menu bar to the right and that is crisp and clear - the banding is only within the actual image from the camera. This makes me suspect that it is not a problem with the main power supply or with the CRT driver board but rather something in the processing of the image or the power supply to the camera. Sean On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 4:54 PM, Mike Harrison wrote= : > On Mon, 13 May 2013 16:42:46 -0400, you wrote: > > >Yes, thank you, I have already seen those. Unfortunately, the innards do > >not seem all that close to mine but I still say that the device is simil= ar > >because the user interface is identical and the outer appearance of the > >case is similar. Also, the PCB inside the controller is silk-screened > >"Redlake Imaging" so it must be that Olympus hired Redlake to design thi= s > >model. > > > >Sean > > Seems like there has been lot of re-badging and company takeovers over th= e > years in the HS video > business > > -- > http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > --=20 http://www.piclist.com/techref/piclist PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .