Which is better, VGA (640 × 480 pixels) at 30 fps or QVGA (320 × 240 pixels) at 30 fps?
More pixels at the same framerate is always better, assuming the device you are viewing the video on supports the resolution. However, if the device you are viewing the picture has to upsample (turn 320×240 pixels into 1024×768, like showing it full screen on your computer) or downsample (turn 640×480 into 320×240, like watching on a cellphone display) then the quality can suffer. The loss in quality can vary widely from device to device. Some will look terrible, others will be almost unnoticeable. For general purposes, it’s better to have more pixels and downsample than have too few and have to upsample. If you are creating a video that you want to show on a computer and a cell phone, for instance, you’d be better off taking the 640×480 for computer viewing and downsampling to 320×240 for the camera than vice-versa.
