GH2 Unhacked maximum clip length

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Phil1076

Well-known member
I've googled it and can't find a solid, concrete answer.

In an unhacked GH2 straight out of the box, recording at the factory AVCHD bitrate, what is the maximum clip length? Some say 12min, some say 29min59sec, BH says 140min. I'm wondering what the soft limit is..in other words, not limited by card size.
 
If you are talking about NTSC cameras, I think the limit is governed by the card size or when the battery runs out, whichever comes first.

The 29 minute file size is an artificial limit placed on cameras sold in the EU based on certain tax considerations.
 
Canon DSLR's have a record limit. Panasonic do not for NTSC countries. At the max bitrate it works out to be about 45 minutes per 8 GB. a 16 GB card is about 90 minutes and a 32 GB should get you around 3 hours.
 
Although there is no record limit, if you can afford to stop recording periodically you can sometimes save yourself some headache with the AVCHD file structure getting corrupted. If the battery stops while you're still recording or if on a hacked Gh1 or Gh2 the card can't keep up with the data, you're probably going to have some problems. I've always managed to find a way to recover the data, but it can be pretty stressful and time consuming.

I've filmed a lot of 1+ hour clips without any problems, but it's something to keep in mind.
 
Your clip will also stop recording at 4gb, due to the fat32 file structure. So keep that in mind as well.
 
Your shot will continue until you stop recording or run out of room, spanning every 4gb, which when brought into Premiere Pro, will display as one complete uninterrupted file.
 
A stock GH-2 with an AC power supply ( or large battery ) can film 12 hours of 1080 HD 24p video using a 128 GB SDXC card. Keep in mind that you will need software that can properly import video files this large. ( i.e. Sony Vegas Pro, Premiere CS 5.5, Final Cut X, ect... )

The GH-2 might work with larger SDXC cards when they become available, but I don`t know what the hardware limitation is. ( in theory it's 2 TB, but I don`t think we'll be seeing these cards anytime soon )
 
I think there is some incorrect postings here. No corruption should occur because of battery running down IF (big IF) you stick to OEM Panasonic batteries. OEM Panasonic batteries have communications with the camera when they are down on power, and the camera stops recording before any corruption. The second post that implies some sort of limit of 4gb is not true. These cameras close the 4gb file and start writing another; this is what is called spanning... Al
 
for avchd your limitation is limited to your batterly life if you are not taking card size into account. there is an enforced 29.59 recording limit only for EU models due to tax reasons that can be removed with the patch. mjpeg it stops once it hits 4gigs
 
I'm familiar with all the limitations of FAT32/AVCHD/bit rates and just wanted to know the max. clip length, so it looks like it's unlimited. Thanks everyone.
 
with the 64 gig cards you are able to shoot about 400 minutes but if you were recording to an external device I guess it would be unlimited...
 
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