Req Canon S1 that records video in mpeg4, any such beast?

I've been reading and reading about all the diff cameras and the canon
s1 seems like a great camera. My only criticism is that when recording
in 640*480 movie mode it uses 1.5 mbyte/sec apparently! so that's about
2 mins on a 256 mbyte Card!!! This seems crazy as Digital-TV mpeg2 is
only about 0.5 mbyte/sec and divx is great quality at only 0.2 mbyte/sec
(thats 21 mins on a 256mb card).

I peered down the Mustek route who do mpeg4 but at 640*480 its only @ 10
fps on the dv5500 which is useless and I'm sure these cheap multi
function cameras sux. I had a umax550 before and it was fun but pretty
crap at everything.

I wonder if there are any of the trustworthy camera manufacturers
(canon, nikon, etc) planning to go the mpeg4 route, so we can get
640x480 (or higher) but use mpeg4 or at least mpeg2 to store it. If
Canon bought out an s1 that used mpeg4 or mepg2 I'd buy one yesterday as
it would then appear have it all. But at the huge data rate the 640x480
movie mode currently uses it seems nothing more than an add-on gimmick,
limited to 9mins / 1gb per video.

I therefore am considering just getting a cheap 2-3mpix camera and
waiting ANOTHER year until something decent comes out, anyone else
waiting on this or with any ideas to solving the portable camera+cam
issue facing us all today in 2004?

S1 = so near and yet so far...

Olympus C770 does mpeg4 movies.



"No Body" wrote in message
.. .
I've been reading and reading about all the diff cameras and the canon s1
seems like a great camera. My only criticism is that when recording in
640*480 movie mode it uses 1.5 mbyte/sec apparently! so that's about 2
mins on a 256 mbyte Card!!! This seems crazy as Digital-TV mpeg2 is only
about 0.5 mbyte/sec and divx is great quality at only 0.2 mbyte/sec (thats
21 mins on a 256mb card).

I peered down the Mustek route who do mpeg4 but at 640*480 its only @ 10
fps on the dv5500 which is useless and I'm sure these cheap multi function
cameras sux. I had a umax550 before and it was fun but pretty crap at
everything.

I wonder if there are any of the trustworthy camera manufacturers (canon,
nikon, etc) planning to go the mpeg4 route, so we can get 640x480 (or
higher) but use mpeg4 or at least mpeg2 to store it. If Canon bought out
an s1 that used mpeg4 or mepg2 I'd buy one yesterday as it would then
appear have it all. But at the huge data rate the 640x480 movie mode
currently uses it seems nothing more than an add-on gimmick, limited to
9mins / 1gb per video.

I therefore am considering just getting a cheap 2-3mpix camera and waiting
ANOTHER year until something decent comes out, anyone else waiting on this
or with any ideas to solving the portable camera+cam issue facing us all
today in 2004?

S1 = so near and yet so far...

OK I'm reading up on it, the initial spec seems to look awesome, just
what I was looking for, thanks for the pointer. A bit pricey though @
£280 but if the gear-lust takes a good firm hold there is probably
little I can do to resist. If anyone has one of these and would like to
comment then feel free.

OK I'm reading up on it, the initial spec seems to look awesome, just
what I was looking for, thanks for the pointer. A bit pricey though @
£280 but if the gear-lust takes a good firm hold there is probably
little I can do to resist. If anyone has one of these and would like to
comment then feel free.

It has the spec I am looking for but a 3MP sensor?

On the other hand noise levels on sample images seems quite pleasant

At the moment my list of contenders is
S1 IS
FZ20

the proprietary LiON and noise has tempered my enthusiasm for the FZ20

The S1 IS seems good on samples

I guess I'll have to think about it a bit longer - perhaps the sensor in the
FZ20 is being driven a bit too hard giving rise to moise that is a bit more
obvious than in th S1 IS or FZ15

Hey - ho ... thinking time

Aerticus

"No Body" wrote in message
...
OK I'm reading up on it, the initial spec seems to look awesome, just what
I was looking for, thanks for the pointer. A bit pricey though @ £280 but
if the gear-lust takes a good firm hold there is probably little I can do
to resist. If anyone has one of these and would like to comment then feel
free.

It has the spec I am looking for but a 3MP sensor?

On the other hand noise levels on sample images seems quite pleasant

At the moment my list of contenders is
S1 IS
FZ20

the proprietary LiON and noise has tempered my enthusiasm for the FZ20

The S1 IS seems good on samples

I guess I'll have to think about it a bit longer - perhaps the sensor in the
FZ20 is being driven a bit too hard giving rise to moise that is a bit more
obvious than in th S1 IS or FZ15

Hey - ho ... thinking time

Aerticus

"No Body" wrote in message
...
OK I'm reading up on it, the initial spec seems to look awesome, just what
I was looking for, thanks for the pointer. A bit pricey though @ £280 but
if the gear-lust takes a good firm hold there is probably little I can do
to resist. If anyone has one of these and would like to comment then feel
free.

Aerticus wrote:
[]
I guess I'll have to think about it a bit longer - perhaps the sensor
in the FZ20 is being driven a bit too hard giving rise to moise that
is a bit more obvious than in th S1 IS or FZ15

Does the noise matter with your picture sizes and viewing methods you
have? These samples viewed at 1:1 zoom may not be representative of your
needs. Try an FZ20 in your environment - I reckon much of this noise
problem is over-rated by those who have never used film, and that zero
noise is somewhat of a fashion.

Cheers,
David

Aerticus wrote:
[]
I guess I'll have to think about it a bit longer - perhaps the sensor
in the FZ20 is being driven a bit too hard giving rise to moise that
is a bit more obvious than in th S1 IS or FZ15

Does the noise matter with your picture sizes and viewing methods you
have? These samples viewed at 1:1 zoom may not be representative of your
needs. Try an FZ20 in your environment - I reckon much of this noise
problem is over-rated by those who have never used film, and that zero
noise is somewhat of a fashion.

Cheers,
David

SteveB wrote:

Olympus C770 does mpeg4 movies.


having looked into it I finally tracked down some actual movie clips
from c770 and it seems that despite it being mpeg4 which is perfectly
capable of great quality, especially at the 2500kbit/sec that it uses,
it doesn't look good. So even at that price, again the movie mode is
little more than a gimmick. The camera spec looks great with 10x zoom
and 4mpix but doesn't have the image stabliser the canon s1 has.

I think I'm left looking at either getting a cheap gimmicky mustek, such
as dv5000/5500 that I know will not be particularly great at anything
but will do some sort of a job at £90 and can do 352x288@30fps in mpeg4.
Or maybe getting a nikon coolpix 3200 which will do 640x480 + 352x240
albeit only at 15 fps and NOT using mpeg4 but should give decent stills
and is nice and small. Then I guess the idea would be to wait for
another 2 years when decent mpeg4 cams with good stills should exist. If
you look at a DVD converted to mpeg4 at 2,500kbit it would be as good as
the DVD, so why a camera using that resolution (olympus c770) isn't is a
bit confusing but...

Annoying though is that none of these seem to use compact flash which is
what I have from prev camera, canon seems to use these BUT the Jessops
guy didn't seem to rate canon, saying they were not that responsive.
Others have reported this also.

this has a link to an mpeg4 movie on the olympus c7770 near the bottom
of the review. Dunno if it's the content or the camera but it doesn't
look great
http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/ol..._770uz-review/

On Wed, 03 Nov 2004 14:59:57 +0000, No Body
wrote:

I've been reading and reading about all the diff cameras and the canon
s1 seems like a great camera. My only criticism is that when recording
in 640*480 movie mode it uses 1.5 mbyte/sec apparently! so that's about
2 mins on a 256 mbyte Card!!! This seems crazy as Digital-TV mpeg2 is
only about 0.5 mbyte/sec and divx is great quality at only 0.2 mbyte/sec
(thats 21 mins on a 256mb card).

He, Mr. No Body:

My best guess is that the processor needed for good MPEG-4
compression would be more expensive than a bigger memory card.

Hans-Georg

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