Posted by Michael Johnson on 06/26/07 19:32

Smarty wrote:
> A number of Nikon point and shoot cameras allow zoom while taking movies,
> including the S10 Coolpix and Coolpix 8800 which I own.

I don't know much about the Nikon P&S cameras. There aren't many that
allows zooming while recording. I read somewhere that one reason for
this is the motor noise from zooming would be recorded and cause too
many complaints.

> The 2 GB limit is usually imposed since the file system required to read and
> write larger files which are Windows-compliant (called NTFS) takes a lot of
> complexity to implement versus the simpler, older FAT file system used in
> most cameras. The physical memory of 2 GB may therefore not be the "true"
> reason why this file size is limited. The camera could write multiple files
> for a movie, breaking the movie into 1 or 2 GB chunks, but they do not seem
> to allow this work-around, probably since it also introduces further
> complexity.

That is a limitation on FAT systems but with FAT32 they could go up to
4GB.

> Smarty
> "Michael Johnson" <cds@erols.com> wrote in message
> news:VIednUfuMf8btxzbnZ2dnUVZ_hSdnZ2d@giganews.com...
>> Moviemaker wrote:
>>> I have been trying out the new Sony Cybershot DSC-W200, and I like this
>>> little camera and its sharp 12 mp stills. The movies, when taken at the
>>> highest resolution (VX Fine 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second) are also
>>> pretty good, given the tiny size of the camera.
>>>
>>> I was told by the sales person that you can use the zoom feature when
>>> making movies with this camera. However, I have found that I can't
>>> actually zoom in and out while the camera is recording movies. I can
>>> select, BEFORE recording, either a wide angle, standard, or telephoto
>>> view, and take movies at these different scales. But it won't zoom in and
>>> out while recording. Can anyone tell me please whether this is a common
>>> limitation of movies taken on digital "still" cameras, or do some models
>>> allow you to zoom in and out while recording?
>> The overwhelming majority of P&S cameras have this limitation when
>> recording video. The only ones that I know of that doesn't is Canon's S3,
>> possibly the S5 and TX1.
>>
>>> Another unexpected movie limitation is that the Sony W200 limits the size
>>> of movie files to 2GB, after which the camera stops recording
>>> automatically. At the highest resolution, a 2GB movie file would take
>>> about 25 minutes to record. Is this a common movie limitation with small
>>> digital cameras of this type? I was told that movies are only limited in
>>> size to the capacity of the memory stick, but this isn't the case with
>>> the W200.
>> If Sony says the W200 supports memory cards up to 2 gig then they are
>> technically right about the video only being limited by the size of memory
>> card. I agree though that this is misleading to most buyers.
>
>

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