reply to post by silver6ix
I am not sure of what you mean, do you mean that the rovers have video cameras?
Do you know the huge amount of bandwidth needed for transmitting video when compared with still images? It would be a waste of resources, video does
not add much information (that is why MPEG compression removes areas that are the same in the previous frame, or something like that), specially on a
subject with very little movement like the one we see on Mars' photos.
About the number of photos, according to
AtlasII Product Search, these are the numbers (for both) at
this time.
Descent cameras: 18
Hazard cameras: 391,690
Microscopic imagers: 4,435,670
Navigation cameras: 984,274
Panoramic cameras: 2,899,335
This gives a total of 8,710,987 photos, more than a handful.
PS: I did not include the data gathered by the other instruments, the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), the Mössbauer Spectrometer
(MB), the Alpha Particle X-Ray Spectrometer (APXS) and the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) because those instruments do not take photos, but the data
gathered must be sent back to Earth like the photos and is available for anyone interested in it.