On 5 Nov 2002 22:20:37 -0800, brandon@parks.ms (Brandon) wrote:

>Thanks for the reply David. I've read several of your posts to other
>threads and you've been helpful. It appears that you agree with Paul,
>in that a lower pixel count (to a certain extent) is better? I gather
>this from the fact that you mention the increased artifacts on the
>cameras with higher pixel counts.

No. There are trade-offs, though...
In the current Sony line, "bottom-end" 1-chippers
have about 600k pixels on a 1/4" CCD (the extras are
used for the stabilizer, making the effective image
area smaller than 1/4", but the more sensitive "HAD"
CCDs used just about make up for this; the "megapixel"
1-chippers use more pixels to make up the image, on a
smaller CCD, with some sharpness and color advantages,
but with more "sawtooth" edging on contrasty edges in
motion, and less low-light sensitivity (neither is
"better" - they represent different choices...); the
3-chippers provide the best color, low-light range,
and especially tonal range, with less artifacting, but
they are generally larger and more expensive. Three
basic type-choices are available - you decide which
characteristics are most/least important among size,
weight,price - and picture controls and smoothness,
sharpness, color-quality, relative freedom from
artifacting, low-light range, tonality, etc. - and
sound controls and quality...

>Also, in looking at your site, which
>is very informative by the way, you can see the image blur and
>artifacting (is this a word?) in the higher pixel count cameras.

Hmmmm....
I don't see this - I see the reverse...;-) BTW, these
sites may be useful to you and others for references and
comparisons:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/vid_pict_characts.htm
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder-comparison.htm
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/sony_dcr-vx2000.htm
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/camcorder--comparison.htm

>I can see your point that the CCD and lens are analog. It's like a
>35mm camera lens. Better lens gets a better picture.

Yes. "Contrary to popular belief", improving the resolution
of either the film or the lens in still-photography will
improve the resolution of the resulting image, though
the image will never be as high in resolution as the lesser
of the two - the resulting resolution approaches the least
high resolution of the lens and film, but can never be the
same (but an improvement in either will improve the result
[to be redundant...;-], and is worthwhile). In video, there
is also not a direct transfer of "resolution ability", or
pixel-count - but a higher-resolution starting image will
improve the resolution of the final image, which is
represented as 720x480 pixels with NTSC D25 (Mini-DV,
DVCam, D8, etc.), and this final pixel count does limit the
image to 720x480 pixels in an absolute way (often expressed
as 540 horizontal by 480 vertical TV-lines of resolution).

>And in this case
>the lens (and CCD) image gets broken up into smaller parts (pixels) in
>the conversion to digital. But, from what I gather, breaking that
>picture up into more parts than is necessary can cause bad effects. Is
>this a decent summation?

No - see above... If anything, using a MUCH higher
resolution CCD should produce an image with lower
artifacting... I suspect the problems arise with the
5:1 frame-by-frame compression of D25, and what happens
when the input info exceeds the ability of the level
of compressor used to produce a smooth image. Even with
the 3-chippers, with their better color information
going in, the resulting (sharp) DV image can show
artifacting, and this can vary from the quite excessive
amount in the Canon GL1, to the almost invisible
amount in the VX1000 (but it is also affected by image
contrast and oversharpening effects in the image
set-up for different cameras)... In the end, looking
at the picture under various conditions, with some
experience in spotting the problems, will bring you
to the best choice for you (characteristics of the
image that "drive me up the wall" appear not to
bother some people - and some even appear to prefer
images with biased color balance, lower resolution,
excessive oversharpening, etc.).

>Thanks again for the reply.
>Brandon