Ask HN: Is there any video from Mars? And if not why?

I don't think there is any now.

Mars is far away. The bit rate possible is not that great:

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/4269545/ns/technology_and_science-...

Opportunity at that time could upload 256 kbps to Earth. You could get highly compressed video over that kind of link, but it wouldn't be so appealing for scientific work because you'd be looking at compression artifacts as actual stuff.

In that case the rover was talking to a relay satellite which then talked to earth. With bigger antennas (on all sides) and more power (on the Mars side) we could get that bit rate up.

Even then there is the issue that video on Mars is going to be a few minutes delayed, so you are not going to have the special fun of being able to interact with things on video.

There is, but Martians use a proprietary form of encryption that they haven't licensed to us puny Earthlings.

To clarify. Are you asking for videos that have been saved or do you mean realtime (ie, now)?