Feature: Video is rising in popularity at a tremendous rate on the web and in the home
Motivation: So Still Cameras and Video Cameras are rapidly converging - Whassup ?

Video cameras and software are steadily rising in capabilities to the point that they will start to displace still cameras in certain photographic areas. It is getting harder to dispute these ideas given the trends we have seen in basic, consumer video editing software (multi-thousand dollar software of 5 years ago can be had for $100 or less now - see our review here). And on the camera side, camcorders have moved to HDTV-High Definition TV resolutions in the past year or so. The result has just accelerated a trend for producing stills or video capture at 1 megapixels or better.

There are five factors influencing the adoption of video for stills. First and foremost, video is inherently popular in its own right. Personal video websites like BLip.TV, DailyMotion,

VideoEgg.com and You Tube have accelerated a trend already picking up steam at news and retail websites. This is the pervasive use of video for key stories(Yahoo's front page has 10 video stories on January 16, 2007 while BBC has 6 stories plus a Podcast and Video/Audio service on its front page). On the recording side, PureDigital has a $100 video camera that is a
cinch to use. And of course many digital still cameras also sport video taking features as well which brings up our second point.

Second, both media are converging. At the CES 2007 show in Las Vegas, Casio was demo-ing a $400 digital still camera that has a 7x optical zoom, image stabilization, plus video MPG4 recording capabilities in a very slim, trim and lite design. On the video side Sony had at CES over a dozen new cameras with variations on the theme of taking HD-High Definition video clips and still images in video and/or digital still mode. For example, the Sony HDRSR1 captures HD Bluray or SD-Standard Definition video onto a 30GB hard disk while being able to capture up to 4Mpixel still images onto a Sony flash card for direct download to your PC or printer. Across the board there are many video cameras offering this capability.

Third, uses for Web and Action shots are a natural for video-to-stills. For example,given that none of the screenshots employed on this site exceeds 800x800 pixels, all the Web Olympic
coverage has been less than 600x600 pixels and the common size for photos on the album site Flickr.com is 800x600 pixels or less - medium scale images have a huge market. Like wise one of the most popular formats for prints of digital images is still the tried and true 6x4 inch format that can be well served by 1Mpixel video-stills. In short, one can see that there is a sizable market for small to medium scale (0.6 to 2Mpixel ) images. And the trend in video hardware is for either for higher resolution recordings or user snaps during video recordings of ever high resolution stills (see the Sony camera above).

Likewise on the action side, digital cameras like the new Sony Alpha and Pentax KD10 are starting to record a continuous stream of images at 3 frames per second or more. This rate of "still" camera capture is designed for action and sports photography where catching the moment is the difference of fractions of a second. But of course, video cameras with their built-in image stabilization, 24 to 120 frames per second(burst mode) also thrive in the Action and Sports world. So action image-takers now have digital still and video camera vendors competing for their loyalty.

Fourth, video technologies are being "imported" into still cameras. Look at the technologies that have been standard fare for video cameras for 5-10 years that are "new, new, new and enhanced" on digital still cameras:
1- Image stabilization either in the camera or on the lens - this big differentiator for new high end digital still cameras while being standard fare for video cams for past 5-7 years;
2 - Monster optical zoom ratios of 25-40 times; still hard to duplicate in still cameras;
3 - very low lux/light scene pickup with good contrast and diminished noise;
4 - infrared and no-light imaging just is done in software for still camera shots.

Fifth and finally, there is a lot of very good image resizing software, that allows users to take the small-to-medium scale images and ramp them up by 150-400% with remarkably sharp and faithful results. However, caution is advised - one must use different software and even post processing techniques to get the best results depending on the format and composition of the original image. Truly this is a separate specialized topic

In general, one can see that a number of factors are causing video cameras and images to go well beyond their 320 x 240 forebearers and qualify for use where once only still images should bother to apply. This presents photographers and particularly photofinishers with tremendous opportunities because their skills and understanding will bring out the best of both sources. However, to be complete one must note that there are some problems on the immediate horizon.

Teething Problems

As one can see the whole consumer electronics market is in a state of flux. This appears to be a permanent condition based on a)the constant doubling in underlying technologies capabilities every 12-18 months and b)the continuing growth of markets for consumer electronics: India, China and the under developed world are leaping into the electronic world to help sustain their new-found economic competitive advantages. But even in the West, the biggest sales over the Christmas holidays were for consumer electronics items at a whopping 42%. So with this kind of market tumult and rapid change, there are inevitably teething problems.

First, in some categories like video and digital cameras, the supporting software has been barely able to keep up with the hardware. One has to get updates to video and photo software so that the programs are able to input the clips and images from the latest cameras and devices. But even more fundamental, the transition to HDTV video formats has unfortunately not gone smoothly. There is a war between major video format standards: Bluray versus HD DVD formats. The basic technology and disc sizes are the same; but the recording and rereading formats and methods are different - the net result a BluRay disc cannot be read on HD DVD enabled machines and vice versa.

To get all the details on the warring formats visit here and here. The consequences are that popular video editing software either may not read and more likely will not produce output in either HD DVD or Bluray formats or, more likely for the time being, neither. For example, Ulead Studio and Adobe Premier Elements, two of the better and more popular consumer video editors - neither supports the new Bluray video formats for burning images to the respective DVDs. So now software vendors like Adobe, Corel/Ulead, and Roxio are delivering special HD burner software. But even this software has limitations on what type of DVD capabilities can be "burned" relative to standard DVD burning. In sum, the warring DVD formats may kill the golden goose that has been prosperous electronics sales over the past few years.

Summary

Its inevitable that video technology would rise in capability as Moore's Law continues to spur technology innovation and investment with its halving costs or doubling capacity every 2 years or less for many electronic technologies. For example, still cameras are now reaching 18-24Mpixel image sensors and corresponding size. But these huge images require special software just for viewing and simple edits. They are designed for high quality art or super large-size commercial printing.

Meanwhile filling in the small-to-medium range of images sizes are cheap digital still cameras with small-size video recording capabilities or competing BluRay or HD DVD video cameras such as the Sony HDR UX7 (BluRay) and the (HD DVD) plus many standard video cameras trying to carve a niche with their still image picture taking capabilities. One solution to avoid the HD format wars is to go with video cameras that capture to the HDD-Hard Disk Data format that can then be read and processed by a wide range of software but at the cost of smaller video clip sizes. Also a number of video cameras have the ability to snap still images aided by special video characteristics(excellent low light, image stabilization, etc)while being able to record at the same time movie clips (users choice).

So the emergence of video cameras in the the still camera marketplace will continue - however, the format wars will inevitably take a toll on market growth until rapprochement or clear winning standard emerges. Photofinishers should be aware of this trend - and should not be intimidated. After all just a half a dozen years ago, vector graphics and animation software and technology was set to eclipse still images - and yet the two technologies have not only co-existed but profited from mutually beneficial developments.