Originally posted by fgaudet It's often touted as an important feature by review sites and salesman. Asides from very few people I know (among which even fewer produced a decent, good quality and interesting video) no one seems to use their DSLR as a video shooter. It's a niche market within a niche market within another niche market, yet it's often promoted as a major feature.
It's an important feature, as many that start to invest in ILC systems will want to have video as they believe they will use from time to time. It's not about making professional videos, but to be able to capture videos from vacations, holidays, or the kids doing something worth capturing. To be able to capture high quality images and video on the same device is worth a lot for many users.
Video is a checkbox feature that many look for when buying a new ILC, and if one camera don't have it, they just look for another brand that have video. They might not use it very often, but to have the option to capture video is important. Video is a feature that sells cameras, and in the end it make the equpment cheaper for the small niche of users that has photography as their main hobby, or make money on photography.