When will we see video the same quality as photos?

[JMapleton]

I've been looking at digital camcorders and I look up the model names on YouTube to find sample videos to see the image and sound quality.

I must say I'm not impressed with most of what I've seen. I'm watching all videos in 1080p and most of the cameras I've looked at are $1000+. Some much more. I think still image cameras have done well well with product great quality images. I have a lowly Canon T1i and I'm impressed with the image quality on still photos. But I'm not impressed with video quality of camcorders.

But this led me to think. When will we have videos that are the same image quality as the photos most of use take? I still find even the highest quality videos very grainy and fuzzy around the edges of the image.

Bandwidth and storage space are two key obstacles to this. I would imagine a 10 minute clip in a video such as this would probably be 100GB+.

Any guesses? 5 years? 10 years?

I've read about 1440p and 2160p. When do you think we'll at least have these out?

 

[996GT2]

But this led me to think. When will we have videos that are the same image quality as the photos most of use take? I still find even the highest quality videos very grainy and fuzzy around the edges of the image.
?

Just get a 35mm movie camera and put a quality Arri lens on it

 

[Kaido]

RED footage looks pretty good out of the box. They use REDcode. Here's a still from the Epic 5K: (still from video)

http://red.cachefly.net/EPIC/tiger4.jpg

A lot of the footage you're seeing is from cameras that do Motion-JPEG or H264 or AVCHD recordings - file formats that have a fair amount of compression in them. The end result is a lower-quality image than a still. REDcode is pretty good. It's definitely a matter of storage space and bandwidth. If we had an unlimited bus with unlimited storage that could write at unlimited speed, we could get some pretty awesome results, but as-is, the current crop of professional digital cameras do a pretty respectable job.

 

[Texashiker]

Any guesses? 5 years? 10 years?

I've read about 1440p and 2160p. When do you think we'll at least have these out?

This is a really good question. As a video blogger on youtube I recently made the switch to 1080p HD with a Canon 130sx IS.

One of the things that I think is holding us back is the overall processing capacity of the camera. With the camera cpu - it can only read and write X amount of data.

Another issue is the speed that sd memory cards can read and write the data. Toms hardware has a good review of a lot of memory cards on the market

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sdhc-memory-card,2143-10.html

Your talking anywhere from 8 - 18.7 mbs - which is not a lot.

I look for the quality of cameras to double within the next 2 years. A couple of years ago I bought my wife a canon rebel at 8 megapixel. At the time there were 12 megapixel cameras on the market, but out of our price reach.

Last week my wife ordered her a new Canon T2i at 18 megapixel.

Before we see overall video quality improve, I think we are going to have to improve the speed that SD memory cards can read/write and improve the performance of the camera cpu.

 

[Throckmorton]

If a regular CCD camera had a lot of RAM and a powerful processor, could it write video to the RAM with the same compression as the photos, reduced down to 1080p?

 

[Gooberlx2]

If a regular CCD camera had a lot of RAM and a powerful processor, could it write video to the RAM with the same compression as the photos, reduced down to 1080p?

One could push full res images with something like motion-jpeg compression, and each progressive frame should be of equal or comparable quality to a regular jpeg still. All it takes is enough power, pipe, a sensor capturing at 24fps, and LOTS of storage space.

I'd say the limiting factor isn't the theory, it's the hardware.

 

[zephyrprime]

It's going to take a long time. We would need higher res, and order of magnitude more processing power, more storage capacity. Most importantly, we would need a much better image sensor. I'm hoping that quantum dot image sensors will yield a breakthrough in image quality. We have been having only very small yearly gains in image sensor sensitivity for decades now. Moving to high megapixel counts is lowering sensitivity.

 

[zephyrprime]

One could push full res images with something like motion-jpeg compression, and each progressive frame should be of equal or comparable quality to a regular jpeg still. All it takes is enough power, pipe, a sensor capturing at 24fps, and LOTS of storage space.

I'd say the limiting factor isn't the theory, it's the hardware.

There are cameras that do that I believe.

 

[corkyg]

Video requires much more bandwidth on a continuous basius than do still photos. Today, it is a hardware limitation, and it will be achieved eventually. But - then photos may double their resolution. Perfection is a never ending, never achievable quest. Lexus acknowledges that in their motto.

BTW, the inexpensive Flip HD camcorder produces a pretty good video..

 

[Throckmorton]

It's going to take a long time. We would need higher res, and order of magnitude more processing power, more storage capacity. Most importantly, we would need a much better image sensor. I'm hoping that quantum dot image sensors will yield a breakthrough in image quality. We have been having only very small yearly gains in image sensor sensitivity for decades now. Moving to high megapixel counts is lowering sensitivity.

Forget the resolution though. My little P&S digital camera can take photos that are probably the same quality as professional movie footage. And yet no consumer video camera can even approach that quality. Video just always looks worse.
I would think a camera could capture that same quality video, downsampled to 1080p at 30fps. After all they are already capable of capturing poor quaity video at 1080p30

 

[mooncancook]

or when will we be able to shoot still photos at 15 mp RAW at 30fps with our dSLR? Eventually it will happen. I think 1080p TV is here to stay for a long while and I don't see any TV with higher resolution coming in the near future, so there won't be a huge demand for video capability beyond 1080p for the general consumers.