KenV,
As you should understand, there is a big difference between getting a higher resolution out of a 4MP sensor for a stills camera and a real-time video camera.
Indeed. Network bandwidth is the driving issue here, not sensor resolution. Others brought up the sensor resolution and in my reply I just put sensor resolution into perspective.
BTW, check out the actual resolutions of modern DSLRs. Once again your information is out of date.
Oh my. I never remotely suggested anything about the "actual resolutions of modern DSLRs". Once again you made a (false) assumption and jumped to a hilarious conclusion. What I said was that a 4MP DAS sensor (IR sensors are by definition monochrome. There's no "color" in the infrared.) is equal in resolution to a 12MP consumer camera, which require 3 sensor pixels to generate each image pixel. 12MP is by no means "leading edge" in consumer cameras, but the resulting 4MP images are certainly not "bad."
And BTW, here's a few other chip resolution factoids for
comparison (just a reminder: a comparison is a relative term, NOT absolute as you implied in your post):
1. Each of the Hubble Space Telescope's two main cameras have 4 CCDs of .64MP. That's 2.56MP total resolution.
2. The Mars Rovers have 2MP sensors.
3. The LORRI camera on the New Horizons space probe imaging Pluto has a 1024 x 1024 sensor, or just over 1MP resolution.
"Abysmal", huh?
If you left active service in 1985, I suspect some of your military knowledge is similarly dated.
IF that that were true, your conclusion would be valid. But once again you made a false assumption which resulted in a hilariously invalid conclusion. I left ACTIVE DUTY (not "active service") in 1985. I don't know how the UK systems works, but here's how it works in USN.
I was a USNA graduate. Which meant that I received an active commission in the unrestricted line. Active commission meant I served in the active forces rather than the reserve forces, and unrestricted line meant I was eligible for command at sea. In 1985 I resigned from active duty and entered the reserves, still unrestricted line. So my active commission became a reserve commission and I served in the Naval Reserve. But being a USNA grad I serve "at the pleasure of the President"
for life, meaning he could re-activate me at any time. I was flying F-18s in the reserves out of NAS Lemoore when I got activated for Gulf War 1, otherwise known as Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Afterwards I continued to fly in theater flying Operation Southern Watch, enforcing the no-fly zones over Iraq, and then at NAS Lemoore in Central California. And if you'd given this just a bit of thought rather than jumping to a conclusion, you would have remembered that there was no such thing as an F/A-18C in 1985.