Lumix TZ5 - video problems - QT sample

Hi,

I just got TZ5 few days ago. I am having some nasty problems with its video recording. Well, I am not sure if my camera is faulty or is this how it is... in this new model. Sort of feature... you know

I am about to send this tz5 back - but I thought to ask here if anyone has similar experience.

What bothers me a lot, when doing videos, is brightness / exposure adjustments which are very visible... I mean, they appear as clearly visible "steps" in (usually) second or 1/2 second time steps (but sometimes much faster). See this sample video here:

http://www.flaregroup.com/temp/tz5qt.mov (9Mb) - I will keep it up for a few days.

first clip is the worst - crazy flickering - but this is what it is.... exposure (I think) adjustments. Note exposure darkening or brightening in clip 2 (about every 1/2 second)... and in the third clip note quite pronounced streaking appearing against gray sunlit house facade. This is not glossy / shiny facade - it is gray painted wood with direct sunlight on it. I am getting streaking from most brighter objects (and I mean not only superbright like the Sun or sun reflections or car headlights)

Can someone please do sample video with tz5 going from, say, sunny street into shaded area? ANd tell me if you get same problem.

At this point I hope my tz5 is broken - so I can get another good one - I do love 10xzoom.

BTW, continuous AF was OFF in these clips (but it did not make difference if it was ON - I tried it)... IMO, AF is not very useful in tz5 - it ruins the videos by constantly readjusting and it is quite visible.

I own older lumix fx1 - and I did not notice such problems (but, that one can't zoom or do HD video)

note: This sample QT is made out of 3 MOV files from tz5.... I did reduce them in size in after effects so this is NOT directly from tz5.... however, as far as flickering and streaking goes - it looks exactly the same. (it obviously is more noisy because it was re-compressed into sorenson 3 QT to reduce the filesize)

Thanks,
Igor