[bigsmoke07]

Is this a normal thing? sorry for the newbie questions, but the images (while kinda dark already through the camera or viewed on a tv) appear almost black through imovie, even the finished project after editing.

This is very annoying...is this normal? What can I do?

[Uncle Skeleton]

yeah, that's Apple's DV codec. they'll look fine if exported to tape, but not if they stay digital. I capture mostly animated content that is unusally bright, but I think I have got it almost back to normal anyway with Media Cleaner by doing a 25% gamma increase, 10% contrast, and 10% black restore. I also use the Mild noise reduction setting and adaptive deinterlacing. I don't know how much of this you can do outside Media Cleaner, but I bet MediaPipe can do it all, just more complicated interface

[bigsmoke07]

Hmm...now I feel like I'm getting into complex waters. and are any of those programs free?

And as side note, will imovie 3 improve this? And it does surprise me that apple's codec is like this, I mean for home movies which is supposed to be imovie's specialty, you would think they would brighten the image...most people are shooting indoor shots. The reason I got this sony trv 22 camera is for it's great low light performance, and now this is really negating that!

Any advice the easiest route to take, this is really too dark.