question about video quality/length on S1-IS

[dwb122]

Hello. Newbie to the forum here, and (in a way) to photography in general. I've had a Digital Elph S200 for a while, but eventually wanted at least a semi-real camera so I ended up getting the S1 a couple days ago.

Let's just say I have many questions about it :), but I'll start with something simple and not related to its photographic capabilities at all. Firstly, exactly what is the difference between the 640x480 setting and the 640x480-fine setting? Obviously the 640f setting is better quality, but in what way exactly? I'm having a hard time being able to tell (partially because I'm temporarily working with a crummy flatpanel monitor here), and I can't find any real info about it on the net.
Also, how exactly does movie length work on this camera? What limits it? Why does it not let me fill up an entire card with one continuous video? Is it a memory buffer issue? Also, what length movies can I get on various size memory cards? The canon site has it listed for each video quality, but only up to 1gb, and I don't know how reliable that info is.

Also--since my gradeschool teachers always told me "there's no such thing as a dumb question"--can any lense or filter that you use for photographs also be used while taking movies, and used in the same way?


Thanks in advance.

[dwb122]

I know I started this as a video-related thread, but I'll ask it anyway: is it really worth it to use the superfine image quality over the regular quality? I noticed this on my Digital Elph as well--it just seems that I only barely notice a difference when the image is blown up to full resolution and I study it for a bit. When is there a practical reason to use a barely noticable (IMO) higher quality setting that takes up almost twice the space?

[Jon]

Yes, superfine is worth it. The two are compression algorithms, and won't greatly affect resolution of contrasty detail. What you'll see on closer examination is that the superfine handles subtle colour gradations better, with less banding, because the greater compression of normal will substitute a single median colour for a broader range of colours.

[JTF]

http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_s1-review/index.shtml

[Brian Kong]

I would like to add a question to this thread. I have an A 620 and can get only 7 or 8 minutes of video on a 1 GB card using 640 x 480 res. Why can't I get at least an hour? I can get 80 mins of video on a CD-R which is only 700 MB.

[RossW]

Hi, Brian -- welcome to the forum!

I would guess the file formats and/or resolutions involved are completely different, and a (comparatively) highly-compressed format is on the CD-R. AVI video format makes hideously large files compared to WMV, and other formats. For example, I've been working on some instructional video productions at work, and the original AVI file for an hour of video tends to run 20 gig or so. The equivalent WMV is more on the order of 300 Meg -- although you can alter the WMV compression and processing specs to make larger or smaller files.