Originally posted by GLXLR ?
full HD recording
I am thinking Pentax will put a model higher than the K-7. It explains why the K-7 "only" manages 1024p. They probably could of easily of done 1080p, but maybe they are reserving it for a higher model (correct me if there actually is a limitation in the sensor that I am not aware of).
Falk would know best, but I think they just took the burst rate of the k20D and turned it into a video mode. To do full HD would have required them to rework their sampling matrix for the K-7, which apparently uses every 6th pixel on every active row but in alternating positions. Assuming the 6-pixel sampling to be true, the camera has to read out 768 pixels from every row for 3072 rows. That is converted to a 1536 x 1024 image. Changing that up would have required some work, maybe a lot of work I don't know.
The difference between 1024 and 1080 is pretty trivial (though the difference between 1536 and 1920 isn't). Still, the true resolving power of the video modes in all these cameras is nowhere close to their advertised resolutions; no DSLR has been yet able to resolve more than around 750 horizontal lines in video testing.
I'd rather see Pentax give us something meaningful like a sharper video mode, even at a lower pixel count, rather than just stretching their pictures out to 1920 without really increasing any detail at all