Powershot Sx 10 Movie Mode Explanation Of Features

By Peter Sneckint

With the Canon PowerShot cameras, you can be assured that you hold in your hands what is among the greatest video capturing tools available to man. When you want to record, you have to use what is called Movie Mode. The only flaw it seems to have is that it stops recording after you have reached one gigabyte, but we'll talk about that in a second.

You have the ability to select among two different resolutions when you are in movie mode. Many people will understand the first one, as it is called VGA, recording at a size of 640 x 480. Then there is QVG. First we'll talk about VGA. This stands for Video Graphics Array and is actually a well known computer term, though the resolution it applies to has passed into the shadows.

QVGA stands for Quarter Video Graphics Array and is sometimes also called Quarter VGA, QVGA, or qVGA. The resolution of qVGA is 320 * 240 and these types of displays (computer monitors) are found on mobile phones, PDAs and other types of hand held devices. It's called QVGA because it offers 1/4 of the 640 480 resolution. The VGA standard was first developed by IBM.

The Canon PowerShot allows you to chose between 15, 30 and 60 frames/second when recording in movie mode, depending on the resolution you have selected. However, you will always come up against the 1GB limit, no matter which mode and frame rate you chose. This 1GB file size limit is for the size of any one individual recording. You will be able to continue recording until the memory card is full or the file reaches 1GB in size, whichever happens first.

You will reach the limit in about nine minutes when you are recording in VGA 640 x 480 at 30 frames per second. You can store several one gigabyte movies in your card if you wish, but it will simply shut off after you reach the one gig limit.

If you're using a Canon PowerShot for video, you will probably be uploading your content to the web. YouTube still has a 10 minute limit on video length. And frankly the attention span of most people will wane considerably sooner than 9 minutes! If you want longer movies, you have a couple options. Reduce the frame rate to 15 fps. That may work for you but remember that the slower frame rate will give you a lower quality image.

You could also lower the resolution from VGA 640 * 480 to QVGA 320 * 240. You should try recording at the different resolutions so that you know how quality is affected. Another thing you could do is to reduce the audio quality. This may reduce the file a bit, but not as much as changing the frame rate or resolution. Many PowerShots also have a "fast frame rate" mode, which records at 320 x 240, 60 frames/second. This means that you can get a better quality video at the lower resolution.

Meaning you could record longer than 9 minutes and still have very good video quality. Again, you should try this option too and check the results. One thing is certain though. No matter what setting you use the quality will far surpass any of the small handheld video camcorders that have been designed primarly to squirt video onto video sharing websites. The main reason for that is the lense, closly followed by the astounding technology delivered by the PowerShot in such a small package. - 30452

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