Image quality of Heroes finale

[foolintherain]

I was wondering if anyone else noticed random blurred sections of the picture during the Heroes finale on Time Warner Cable? Almost like fingerprints or just smears on the camera lens for a few moments.

I had PVR'd the show and watched it this evening. The reason I'm asking is that I just bought a new plasma and haven't noticed this on any other show, but want to make sure it was the signal/broadcast and not the new TV. I'm pretty sure it was the show itself since it happened at only the same moments when I would rewind and watch it again.

Some examples:

When the man with the horn-rimmed glasses is talking with Elle in his cell, and then with Elle's dad.

At the safe, the scene with Hiro, Adam, and Peter

Those are the 2 biggest ones I remember. The first scene is the worst though.

Anyone else notice this or are my eyes (or my brand new 50" plasma) going bad on me???

[Dbailey]

Noticed same exact thing, thought it might have been an effect but not sure now...

[mikegodwin]

I saw it here also.

[snodgrass23]

They were doing all kinds of odd camera effects in the last episode. I'm not sure if they had a good reason, or just found an effect they like and decided to overuse it.

[foolintherain]

Thanks for the confirmation...I'm just glad it wasn't my new TV :)

[zelig2]

My wife even commented on the over use of that effect. It comes from a split field close up filter. It's basically a lens that's cut in half and put on the end of the camera lens. It allows something really close to be in focus on one side of the screen and something else in focus further away on the other side. It's a fun effect to play with and is used a lot in film still to this day. One of the side effects though is that the area in the middle usually gets messed up due to a number of aberrations. Not really sure why they felt the need to use it so much on the last episode.

[snodgrass23]

yeah, I noticed they used it a couple times in the episode before, notable in the car scenes when the driver was talking to the person in the back seat. They were able to keep both of them in focus. Somebody must have liked it, because it seemed like they used it most of this last show.