sinatraman, I don't often disagree with you, but the software for firmware is exponentialy harder to write. Adding the firmware for video would add extensively to the cost. It's like new pharmaceuticals on the market. They have to make the cost on r&d as soon as possible, therefore the cost of a non-video camera would be significantly lower. I haven't written any firmware in a number of years, but we once had to write it in assembly language, which is very difficult. We would then have to run it through an emulator which, itself, had to be written in assembly language. It's not like writing in a 4gl language or C++ or Python.

thank you. the point i was trying to make in a very clumsy way was that most of the cost for a dslr with or without video would be nearly the same. adding video didn't add to the mechanical equipment side of the camera. with or without video, a d-800 lets say will still have a mirror, lens mount ,sensor, af system metering system hot shoe etc. if you opened up a video dslr and put it next to the same model without video you couldn't tell them apart. not a computer person, so i bow to your expertise on how costly writing the firmware would be. my long winded point is you wouldn't save much money, and people would still spend the extra for all the bells and whistles. look at new cars there is a reason you can hardly find a stripped down basic sedan on the lot, people say they want em but wind up buying the loaded vehicle instead for just a little more.

thank you. the point i was trying to make in a very clumsy way was that most of the cost for a dslr with or without video would be nearly the same. adding video didn't add to the mechanical equipment side of the camera. with or without video, a d-800 lets say will still have a mirror, lens mount ,sensor, af system metering system hot shoe etc. if you opened up a video dslr and put it next to the same model without video you couldn't tell them apart. not a computer person, so i bow to your expertise on how costly writing the firmware would be. my long winded point is you wouldn't save much money, and people would still spend the extra for all the bells and whistles. look at new cars there is a reason you can hardly find a stripped down basic sedan on the lot, people say they want em but wind up buying the loaded vehicle instead for just a little more.

I haven't written firmware software, but I'm guessing that there are better tools for doing it now. Also, I suspect that a lot of it can just be re-used, since it's already been written for existing platforms, i.e., cameras with the video capability.