It is as simple as that. For optimal video quality, that is what you want. You want the biggest pixels you can get, as long as there are enough of them to cover the frame. That's why in broadcast cameras you'll always see CCD's with just enough pixels to cover the frame.

True to a point. The # of pixels reflects the density of the pixels on the chip, and to some degree that reflects the resolution the camera is capable of. But there are other factors that are affected by the pixel count as well, namely latitude and low light performance. Tiny pixels have lousy light-gathering capability and can't hold as much of a charge so you get worse low-light performance. Resolution is not the sole determining factor for whether a video image looks good.

The optimal solution is to have just enough pixels to cover your frame size, and to have as large a chip as possible.

However Barry it would not be a benifit for Canon to reduce the pixel count. Would it? And according to your statement about having enough pixels to just cover the chip might read to a straight logic layman type like myself as meaning all chips have just enough pixels to cover them, otherwise they would simply not be covered (with those particular size pixels) Now it seems that there is an optimum size of pixel. What is its size? I don't understand how it could be just enough to cover the chip because you could do that with 4 or 6, but this would not be optimum. I'm going to assume that Canon optimised the pixel count for that size of chip otherwise I'll be wearing a straight-jacket before the XL2 hits the streets. Thanks for the info, it did help.

I meant "enough pixels to cover the format's frame". i.e., for DV in an NTSC camera, you want at least 720 x 480 pixels. For a high-def 1080 camera, you'd want to have at least 1920 x 1080 pixels. Any more than that would mean that the pixels were smaller than necessary, any fewer than that would mean limited resolution.

Canon put in enough pixels to cover the DV frame at a 1:1 ratio, considering that the CCD pixels are square and the DV frame pixels are non-square. However, had they made the chip be actually 16:9-shaped, those pixels could have been much larger, which would mean better light-gathering capability and less issues with latitude and noise. Because they only use a smaller 16:9-shaped chunk off a 4:3 CCD, they had to cram a lot more smaller pixels onto the chip in order to have enough to cover the DV frame with enough pixels to provide adequate resolution.

Just to indicate it again, shooting in true/native 16:9 on DV will
increase your VERTICAL resolution, NOT horizontal. Yes, horizontal
will have a higher sampling rate and this wider field of view, but
as indicated only 720 pixels of those are stored.

So beside the wider FOV and higher sampling the real benefit is
in the vertical resolution.

>>The question of why we're not all using PAL now is simple (as Chris implied) - namely that we're dealing with the matter of huge scale. North America is a big, big market<<

Colin, heres some trivia for you...

When I was stationed in West Germany in the late 70s, I brought my B&W NTSC TV with me and a step down voltage converter (from 220 to 110) but still at 50hz. I was able to pick up the local German TV station (video only) just fine. Great picture and everything.
Armed Forces Radio and Television Stations managed to broadcast 50hz with NTSC style interleaved audio so we had sound.

So... in order to save money...do the latest TVs have the built in ability to show either PAL or NTSC? And is the NTSC market simply not being told about it? hmmmmmm That would go with the North America gets dumbed down products theory, hehehehe