M-JPEG too big for movie mode?

[Turn]

How can I watch a 3minute .H264 thats 768x432 (25fps) be 50mb when a 50second M-JPEG from my Canon A640 is 87.7mb which is 640x480 (30fps)

reading the wikipedia entry its main advantages is that it doesn't require as much processor power and is mostly used for non linear editing but the trade off is big ass file sizes

I'm sure that those companies are looking at simple solutions and sticking to something that works

but 600mb for a 5minute 38second file is just crap really..

yeh I know someone is going to say "buy a video recorder then you ass"

[Rhys]

how is the imgae quality on each?

[Visual Reality]

The difference is in the quality of compression, and effeciency of the program/codec used...obviously your H.264 is superior. I'd guess the M-JPEG isn't compressed much?

[Margus]

Turn, you are right. Copy-paste from the Wikipedia:
As a result, MJPEG is an outdated and inefficient codec, whose main advantages are low processor overhead, ease of editing, ease of implementation by developers using existing JPEG algorithms or libraries, and broad compatibility.

Does anyone know any digital cameras which use the H.264 / MPEG-4 format for taking movies? All what come to my mind just support the outdated and inefficient motion-JPEG format...

[Margus]

Ok, found one camera with the H.264 support, it's the new Fuji Finepix S2000HD (http://www.fujifilm.com/products/digital_cameras/s/finepix_s2000hd/index.html). It's using the MPEG4 format for movies, which is the same as H.264 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264) according to my understanding.

[jekostas]

H.264 (and various other Mpeg-4 codecs) and DivX/Xvid require licensing fees. M-JPEG (which is essentially a bunch of small jpegs in sequence) does not.

It would be really nice if more camera manufacturers would use the former and not the latter.

[Rhys]

H.264 (and various other Mpeg-4 codecs) and DivX/Xvid require licensing fees. M-JPEG (which is essentially a bunch of small jpegs in sequence) does not.

It would be really nice if more camera manufacturers would use the former and not the latter.

I've seen some of the little "pocket video camera" things with incredible compression - half an hour of VGA video on 1GB.

[Turn]

hmm I'd like to make an "official" suggestion but it probably get ignored :(

[tkbslc]

Lots of the newer cameras are starting to use the h.264 etc. Chances are if your camera cost less than $200 it is still mJPeg. The old standard was the MJPeg because the margins for profit are thin on low-end compact cameras. If you can save $3 per camera by using a lower end algorithm with slightly less processor requirement, that adds up. You sell a few million cameras a year and you just made another $10 mil in profit. Plus, why should the Camera company care if you have to buy another memory card? If they cared about that, they would spend the $5 to have 2GB of memory built in. :)