On Sun, 14 Apr 2002 12:21:42 +1200, Brian wrote:

>I see that video camera's are rated in Gross and Actual pixel numbers
>what is the difference ?

The "actual" number is just that: the number of
pixels used for the video image (the others may be used
for stills, stabilization, etc.).

>What is important for video picture quality, the number of pixels or
>the number of picture lines.

Not "picture quality", but "resolution" is affected by
pixel count, and the number of picture lines (generally
an unreliable measure, BTW...) is a measure of picture
resolution (in one direction...). Many other aspects are
also involved in "picture quality" - see:
www.David-Ruether-Photography.com/vid_pict_characts.htm

>I see that the DCRTRV900E video camera, which takes very good quality
>pictures, has only 360K pixels, yet a cheaper camera. the DCRTRV30E
>has a greater number of pixels at 970K. Why is that ?

The TRV900 has 3 CCDs...