550 - Bad video clips quality

I compare Optio 550 video clips and Fuji 6800 clips. It seems that Optio movies are really BAD. Even Casio S2 clips are better -- better colors, better resolution. And more or less bearable movies can be obtained only w/o zoom. Zoom at video is a real DISASTER! They just crop an area of a 320x240 already bad quality frame and stretch it (with even more distortions) to a full frame. I'm very disappointed!
Anybody has the same experience or is my camera bad?

Here's the samples









And all those instead of what could be obtained!







(8.1 = 2592/320 Just crop! No digital zoom!)

G-:

Oops! The names were invisible, so I'll comment the shots:

The first scene from real MOV videoclip, wide and 4X





The second scene from real MOV videoclip, wide and 4X





What could be if Pentax have wanted it:

Wide



4X



8.1X -- maximal zoom which could be obtained by cropping 320x240 from 2592x1944, w/o digital zoom



G-:

Yes Georgy if you look at my Thread " How to contact Pentax!" the answer is there.

Essentially you are looking at a thumbnail image which is why it is poor. There will be a firmware upgrade on the Pentax USA site soon

Be patient!

Regards
Dave

No, these are not thumbnails. These are the screenshots of QuickTime playing the clips.
G-:

P.S. I hope they'll include the 'ISOSpeedRatings' tag into EXIT in their firmware update?

Dave N ! said:

Yes Georgy if you look at my Thread " How to contact Pentax!" the
answer is there.

Essentially you are looking at a thumbnail image which is why it is
poor. There will be a firmware upgrade on the Pentax USA site soon

Be patient!

Regards
Dave

Click to expand...

Did you change zoom level WHILE recording a video? The manual explicitly states that you can't use optical zoom during movie recording - the camera uses digital zoom instead.

I haven't tried movie recording myself yet so I'm not 100% sure, but I think the only way you can get "crisp" zoomed-in video footage is to set the zoom level before recording. Don't touch the zoom buttons while recording.

I read somewhere that the reason why manufacturers are limiting access to optical zoom during movie recording is the optical zoom motor noise which gets recorded into videofiles.

Janne Puonti said:

Did you change zoom level WHILE recording a video? The manual
explicitly states that you can't use optical zoom during movie
recording - the camera uses digital zoom instead.

Click to expand...

And the camera behave exactly as it's said. You can have only digital zoom while the objective is at wide. What pisses me off is that they don't care about video quality at all. Instead of cropping from the original 5MP CCD image they crop and enlarge 320x240 frame.

Actually, it seems that Pentax do the same with digital zoom for still pictures too. So it appears to be totally useless. You can do the same "zoom" in any graphical editor. In contrast, other DC makers use cropping from original big image from CCD for simulating digital "zoom". So e.g. Fuji 6800 has no digital zoom at 6MP at all, 1.4X zoom at 3MP and so on up to 4.5X zoom for 640x480 pictures. I think, it's kinda much more honest.

Member said:

I haven't tried movie recording myself yet so I'm not 100% sure,
but I think the only way you can get "crisp" zoomed-in video
footage is to set the zoom level before recording. Don't touch the
zoom buttons while recording.

Click to expand...

I wish we had such button...

Member said:

I read somewhere that the reason why manufacturers are limiting
access to optical zoom during movie recording is the optical zoom
motor noise which gets recorded into videofiles.

Click to expand...

I would rather have silent videoclips with 5X optical * 8X digital zoom than videoclips with audio (which Pentax does really great, best of all) and absolutely useless zoom.

Again, the absence of responses to these posts shows that we, customers, don't care about video quality either.

Regards,
G-:.

G?orgy said:

And the camera behave exactly as it's said. You can have only
digital zoom while the objective is at wide. What pisses me off is
that they don't care about video quality at all. Instead of
cropping from the original 5MP CCD image they crop and enlarge
320x240 frame.

Click to expand...

Duh, I think this is what you were trying to say in your original message and I completely failed to understand it.... My bad, I see now what you mean.

Georgy said:

Actually, it seems that Pentax do the same with digital zoom for
still pictures too. So it appears to be totally useless. You can do
the same "zoom" in any graphical editor. In contrast, other DC
makers use cropping from original big image from CCD for simulating
digital "zoom". So e.g. Fuji 6800 has no digital zoom at 6MP at
all, 1.4X zoom at 3MP and so on up to 4.5X zoom for 640x480
pictures. I think, it's kinda much more honest.

Click to expand...

I think it's just a matter of different implementation and a different set of drawbacks. The above method might yield better quality, but you'll get less resolution (assuming, once again, that I understood what you meant). I bought my very first digital camera last Friday (Optio 550, unsurprisingly.. , but despite my lack of experience with cameras I don't want to have ANYTHING to do with digital zoom (atleast not in the camera). The first thing I did was turn off digital zoom in the 550 (and it's great that you can turn it off). If I need to enlarge a picture at a later time I'll rather do it with Panorama Tools for PS than with the camera.

Georgy said:

I would rather have silent videoclips with 5X optical * 8X digital
zoom than videoclips with audio (which Pentax does really great,
best of all) and absolutely useless zoom.

Click to expand...

I'm of the "more options is better" camp myself - naturally it would be great if the USER could choose whether he wanted to record audio or not, AND whether or not he wanted to use optical zoom while recording a movie. As long as Pentax made it clear that using the optical zoom while recording movies with sound would result in the "whirr" being recorded as well, I don't see a problem with that.

Georgy said:

Again, the absence of responses to these posts shows that we,
customers, don't care about video quality either.

Click to expand...

And although I replied, I have to admit that I don't much care about the video quality. I bought the camera to take still shots. If I wanted to make a home movie I'd buy a digital camcorder instead / on the side I'm going to try the movie recording mode today just to see how it works. Who knows, maybe I'll find some use for it.

Janne Puonti said:

I'm of the "more options is better" camp myself - naturally it
would be great if the USER could choose whether he wanted to record
audio or not, AND whether or not he wanted to use optical zoom
while recording a movie. As long as Pentax made it clear that
using the optical zoom while recording movies with sound would
result in the "whirr" being recorded as well, I don't see a problem
with that.

Click to expand...

Agree with you 100 times. Unfortunately, it's not in Optio 550. So, next time!

Member said:

And although I replied, I have to admit that I don't much care
about the video quality. I bought the camera to take still shots.
If I wanted to make a home movie I'd buy a digital camcorder
instead / on the side I'm going to try the movie recording mode
today just to see how it works. Who knows, maybe I'll find some use
for it.

Click to expand...

Well, I agree in general, but recently I've been to a flight festival. Hm, still pictures of flying planes... I'd rather have poor video clips

..and apparently the 550 defaults to full wide angle when shooting movies, regardless of what zoom level you had set before recording a video clip.

I'm not disappointed, though. My expectations were so low to begin with..