I don't care about video. Should I?

Spillicus,

Thanks for the reply, which I can relate to very well. Indeed, this is pretty much my reason for the occasional video, too. My #3 daughter was adopted from China in 2011, at the age of six. I took some simple home video with one of my early digital cameras at that time, and it's valuable to me and my wife now for just the reasons you mentioned: we can see how very very different she was at that age, especially because she couldn't yet speak English. I can completely see the value in capturing occasional moments like that — almost the more ordinary, the better. Just to capture the sound of voices, someone's facial expressions as they happen, etc.

But is that really why Sony is putting so much effort into video in its top digital cameras like the A99 and A77? DO I really need AVCHD to take 45 seconds of video (with stereo audio) of my dogs running around in the backyard? I don't think Facebook's standards are that high.

Will