T4i has 1 hour, 32 minutes of continuous movie recording, but not 3-10 zoom?

J

jordy2324

Well-known member
In SD, at least. HD has 22 minutes of continuous, a nice bump from the 12-13 minute limit all previous APS-C Canons had before it. The official Canon specs say the T4i has 22 minutes of continuous recording time in HD and a whopping 1 hour and 32 minutes in SD. (wowzers)

In the official Canon specs, the make no mention of a 3-10 crop/zoom. At I-R, however, they do have 3-10 crop/zoom as a listed feature. Weird.

Discuss
 
gonzo_entertainment said:
"22 minutes of continuous recording time in HD "

You sure that's not 720p instead of 1080?
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Both. That's something people often get confused about with Canon HDSLRs. 1080/30 and 720/60 are essentially the same in terms of data, so in 99% of scenarios, time limit/file size is the same. Both are 330mb/min.
 
Been so busy lately I almost missed all the announcements for this camera!
That's a strange limitation though, isn't it?

I mean, the 12-15 minute limit was due to the FAT system maxing out with 4GB files, and the lack of file spanning when that limit is reached. So how are we getting 22 minutes now? Is the bitrate lowered or codec more efficient to squeeze more time into 4GB? They wouldn't span one file and then stop at two, would they?

I'm guessing they cut the bitrate in half, so you can now record twice as long. If you set the bitrate to be half the normal in Magic Lantern, you can double the recording time of your current camera too. I'm hoping they are using a better/more efficient codec, though.
 
... agree with Mr Gilden ... this implies lower bitrates. Not a good sign for the video DSLR shooters.
Me personally I'm now more interested in DSLR's for stills since the new wave of large sensor camcorders.
 
J Davis said:
... agree with Mr Gilden ... this implies lower bitrates. Not a good sign for the video DSLR shooters.
Me personally I'm now more interested in DSLR's for stills since the new wave of large sensor camcorders.
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Still price though. I'm never going to buy a camera over $5K or so. That's rental territory. The point of DSLR video is very high quality at sub $5K (fully rigged) price point.
 
I talked to the rep and they said the T4i doesn't have the 3x-10x zoom for video :(

I also saw on a number of sites where the specs show file size to be 330megs/min recording. This would be the same 44 mbps video as all the previous Canon APS-C cams with video. No idea where the 22 min record time comes from. I hadn't seen that in any spec sheets. Does anyone have any links to where that comes from?

Cheers,
Pete
 
All the usual reasons:
The unusual 4/3 sensor.
Low light handling.
Lack of fast wide lenses.
The fact that if you buy 4/3 lenses you are essentially trapped into that format.
Etc.

But lets no make this into another GH2 vs APS-C thread Victor. Its about the T4i.
 
22 minutes is what you'd get with a 24 Mbps codec and FAT file size limitation (4GB) - maybe they included a lower-bitrate version of IPB and the 330MB/min thing was a typo?
 
Samuel H said:
22 minutes is what you'd get with a 24 Mbps codec and FAT file size limitation (4GB) - maybe they included a lower-bitrate version of IPB and the 330MB/min thing was a typo?
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Yes, that's what I said above.

Curiouser and curiouser.
 
I just tested this on the T4i, and I can confrim that it records continuously for 30 minutes! :) It does this by recording three 4 Gigabyte files (just like on the 5D Mk III), so NOT by lowering the bitrate :)
 
so, can we also confirm that the codec is the same one from the old Canons?
because at the old 12min/4GB you end up with 3 files for those 30 minutes, but with the new IPB two files would be enough
 
Interesting! Real file spanning!

Samuel H said:
so, can we also confirm that the codec is the same one from the old Canons?
because at the old 12min/4GB you end up with 3 files for those 30 minutes, but with the new IPB two files would be enough
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Yes, I would have assumed the codec is the same- Word on the street is that the new codecs are exclusive to the Digic5+, as opposed to the more consumer-oriented digic5 (without the plus).

But the file spanning capability is pretty cool! Sounds like this was tested on the PAL version, judging by the 25p setting. I recall that the GH2 had a 30-minute limit on the PAL version because of the video-camera tax on that side of the pond, but the NTSC version did not. I wonder if that is the case here as well- or if Canon just stuck with the 30min limit across the lineup. Judging by the fact that the Digic 4 cameras were still limited to 29:59 in 480p, I'm going to guess that they made this limitation standard.

The good news? This sounds like a limitation that will be much easier to overcome with Magic Lantern.
 
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