FS7: FS7 for 2 hrs continuous event recording. Advice for settings needed

Clermond

Clermond

Veteran
I have a request from a client to shoot a speech at an event. It's announced for 90mins but to be on the safe side I am planning for some time extra. HD will be enough. I was thinking of MPEG HD-422 25p but I could not find the recording time which is possible on a 64 or 128GB card? Do you have better suggestions than MPEG HD-422? custom STD will be fine I think. Many thanks for sharing your experience.
 
MPG422 would be the right choice. From experience events seldom goes non stop for hours so you should have time to swap cards if needed. But I don't think you will need to because a 128GB cards with video running at 50mb/s will last for like five hours.
 
thanks for your feedbackk, Osslund. So a 64GB might be enough also? The speaker is announced for a 90min lecture
 
A 64 GB card in XAVC-I in HD runs 82 mins
In 50mbps MPG422 if I remember correctly is roughly 122 mins.

You could always drop down to 35mbps xavc-L as well.

If you have more than one card, put them both in and make sure simultaneous record is off -> the camera will auto switch cards without missing a frame.
Try it first if you've never done it. Its a bit nerve wracking the first time and you haven't see how the camera does it. The record light turns off, a notification comes up saying "switching slots" and then the record light comes back on -> meanwhile you're freaking out wondering if you've lost anything!

If you're worried, as the cam records, you can hit 'slot select' and it'll swap slots without missing a frame as well (so you can control when it switches rather than just at the end of the card).
 
thanks for this hint. I had slot swapping already on my other 4K XAVC-I projects but tried always to avoid it.
 
I shoot a 2 hour event once every year as a regular thing and i always put my FS700 and the last two years FS7 to continuous record while i zoom in with my A7s II (earlier Canon 5D) with limited recording time. And just sync all the footage with pluraleyes and voila, my el-cheapo multicam broadcast on DVD. Works great.

Never had trouble with storage space on either camera. Go for low bandwidth. My camera is just on a tripod so theres almost no movement in the image.
 
I shoot 128GB cards which last for 65min each in xvac 4k 23.976. Typical lectures will use 1.5 cards but I can hot swap if needed just carefull to not shake the camera when swaping. I like the ability to crop later, elimates the need for a two camera setup in many cases. Just make sure you are shooting wide enough (peple move) and that focus is sharp.
 
morgan_moore said:
AFAIK one can 'circle' cards too (swap out the one not recording) - enabling 'infinite' record times.
Click to expand...

Yes you can do this - used to do it all the time on my EX3 and occassionally still do on my PMW300. Don't see any reason why you could not on the FS7...but of course getting the non-recording card out of its slot and replacing it with a clear one without "wobbling" the cam on the tripod whilst still recording on the other card might be a different challenge! (I read somewhere the cards are deep seated/hard to extract on the FS7, I think this might have been resolved with the FS7 MkII, along with all the other little improvements).
 
In the end the presentation was only 90mins and I was shooting 1080p 25 Intra. It was enough for one 128GB card. Lenny's modified custom settings served me also well.
 
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