Posted by Steve on 12/26/06 19:12

Are you talking about capturing stills in a high resolution then scaling to
640x480 to use in a video? I hope not; that was not the original topic
here.

One more time,

when you shoot VIDEO with your camera, it uses a 640x480 area of the sensor.
The camera does NOT use the whole sensor for VIDEO. The digital zoom uses
part of the 640x480 area, not the whole sensor, for VIDEO, and expands it to
640x480 for your shot.

How the camera handles stills is another story and not up for discussion
here.

Please prove me wrong. Send a link to the manual that states otherwise.

Here is a test.
- take a VIDEO of a subject, fairly close up with the lens fully wide.
- walk far away from the subject, and use the digital zoom to compose it in
the same way, then shoot another VIDEO.
Are the two shots of equal quality? I think you will find they are not.

"Jan Panteltje" <pNaonStpealmtje@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:emrra9$8q9$1@aioe.org...
> On a sunny day (Tue, 26 Dec 2006 12:49:59 -0500) it happened "Steve"
> <no@mail.sorry> wrote in <ahdkh.10$9m7.1@newsfe11.lga>:
>
>>Dear Jan,
>>
>>I took a look at a higher-end Mustek (5Mpixels) mp4 camera and found that
>>the VIDEO RES is 640x480. See below...
>>
>>a.. Stylish 6-in-1 digital video camcorder with 12-megapixel resolution
>>and
>>10x digital zoom
>>a.. 5-megapixel CMOS sensor; MPEG-4 video formatting with 640 x 480
>>resolution @ 30 fps
>>a.. 2.0-inch TFT LCD display; 32 MB internal memory; SD/MMC memory card
>>slot
>>a.. Also functions as digital camera, digital voice recorder, MP3 player,
>>and card reader
>>a.. Measures 1.61 x 2.91 x 3.86 inches (W x H x D); 1-year limited
>>warranty
>>
>>http://www.amazon.com/Mustek-5-0-Megapixel-MPEG-4-Digital-Camcorder/dp/B000E263YG
>
> You fail to see the point that _ANY_ cut-out of the sensor is _always_
> rescaled to 640x480 (in mpeg4).
>
> So:
> case 1, digital zoom at 1x, i use the whole sensor:
> I grab 2048x whatever and rescale it to 640x480 in soft, and then encode
> to mpeg4 640x480.
>
> case 2, digital zoom so I use 640x480 of the sensor:
> I grap 7640x480 from the middle of the sensor, no need to rescale, encode
> to mpeg4 640x480.
>
> case3, digital zoom 8x, I use the smallest possible area of the sensor:
> I grab 2048 / 8 = 256 x whatever from the middle of the sensor, rescale up
> to 640x480,
> encode to mpeg4 640x480.
>
> Always the output format is 640x480 of course, as you noticed.
> The only time when the Mustek I have does _nopt_ use full 2048xsomething i
> n1x zoom, is
> when it has motion stabiliser activated.
> In that case it uses about 10% less (you can clearly see the picture
> shrink a bit when
> you activate it).
> In case of image stbilisation it neds the extra percents to move about to
> keep it centered.
>
> This is all very simple and all there is to it.
>
>
>>I suggest you capture a bit of video in what you believe to be the
>>camera's
>>highest resolution, then examine the file on your PC, in whatever
>>application you have, and check it's properties to learn it's actual
>>resolution.
>
> F*cking arrogant remark!
>
>

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