Banding in video

I was just in a discussion with another underwater shooter and the subject of video banding came up. I am only guessing that since I see this banding most often in other's footage when they are shooting wide angle clips and there is a lot of blue water in the footage that it could be because their cameras are slightly aimed up and, therefore, may be the suns light hitting the water at all angles could be the cause. Just don't really know.
Does any one have any insights into the cause of video banding?
Steve

Hi Steve,

Banding is caused during compression. It's a compression error (higher bit rates help). Blue skies are problematic as well as underwater shots.

--ken

Indeed. I first noticed it about 13+ years ago when I was shooting a time-lapse of the moon during the day on the then-new Canon XL1. The DV codec just couldn't handle smooth transitions in color gradients. JPEG is the same way for still pictures but it usually isn't as pronounced. GIF on the other hand...