On Fri, 26 Apr 2002 16:44:15 +1200, Brian wrote:

>I read that the Sony TRV25 video camera has a Focal Distance of
>2.7-37mm which is the 35mm conversion of 50-500mm (camera mode) and
>42-420mm (memory mode). What's the difference between camera mode and
>memory mode?

Camera mode is for motion-video, and the stabilizer uses
part of the CCD area, so the angle of view is reduced;
memory mode is for stills, and the camera is switched into
progressive-scan mode to improve resolution within the frame
with motion compared with interlacing where alternate
field scan lines may be out of synchronization with motion
(to smooth the motion-video image by essentially doubling
the "frame" rate...) - the unstabilized stills can use
more of the CCD area, making the angle of view wider.
BTW, feeding the memory-mode image to another camera to
get the higher-resolution/wider-angle works, but the
stills-optimized image looks bad for motion-video...