Little confusion regarding shooting movies(with Canon IXUS 200 HS)

omkarjere · May 22, 2012

This is actually my first digital camera so getting a little confused.

Today I changed the video recording resolution from 1920x1080 to 1280x720, after that I have approx 20 mins remaining for shooting movies, Now my question is if I shoot all those 20 mins will it occupy all the memory I have got(I am currently using the default provided 4gb memory card.) ? Or even after shooting those 20 mins will there be some space for taking photographs ?

How does it work ?

Overread · May 22, 2012

DSLRs are capped (due to restrictions on the video codec I think, but hardware limitations such as sensor heat build up might also be factors) on how long they can record a single continuous stream of video data. As such a single video stream might only be 20mins or so and if you wanted to record for longer you would have to make it up out of several streams of recorded video.

I can't say how big the video file will be on your card and, to an extent, it will vary depending on the content of the video itself and the complexity of the scene to be recorded. So there will be some variation in the file sizes. The only way to find out is to record a video and see if you have space left out and roughly how much space that is.

In addition if you are ever worried about storage space on a camera, buy more memory cards. Make sure their write speed is fast enough for the camera (the camera manual will state the cameras writing speed, cards should meet that for best performance - any faster on the card and you won't get any bonus, whilst any slower and you might see FPS drop and video mode cut out early).

Note many memory cards state their read speed on the packaging in bold not the write speed, so do check the back of the pack for the writing speed.

omkarjere · May 22, 2012

Thanks for the quick reply, I tested it out recorded for the entire available time and it seems it does take entire memory i.e it doesn't reserve some of for taking photos etc. I guess I'll have to get a few extra memory cards