Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

Hi, Has anyone got any experience of shooting video on their beastie? I mentioned in another thread that I was planning on using mine to record a Christmas Eve service at church. Last night, I took it to choir practice and set up to record, just as a test.

It does ok, although the light will probably be lower on the day. The pictures are certainly acceptable, and the sound is pretty good too. I will have 3 other cameras recording, and have access to the church audio recording too, so sound should not be an issue.

My problem is that it stopped recording after 16 minutes and 17 seconds. There was still a ton of space on the card, and the battery was still showing 3 bars. They are the only things that the manual lists as causing a recording to stop...

One of my other cameras stops automatically after 20 minutes, so that was my first thought. Not with it stopping at such a strange time, though.

I am going to play around and try with some different settings and stuff, but I wondered if anyone out there had any pearls of wisdom.

I have included a jpeg grabbed from the video, just out of interest. As you can see, it is not exactly broadcast standard, but this is only a recording for interested members of the congregation.

Thanks in advance for any tips!

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

Additional info:

There appears to be a limit on file size. I have run a bunch of tests, and am downloading them now, but it appears that each of them is 3.99 GB in size. I get 16 min 17 seconds in 1920, twenty-some minutes in 1280, and longer on 640 (it was up to 40 minutes last time I looked at it before it stopped.)

Anyone know of a way to have it restart a new recording at that point? The other cameras are all HD, and I would hate to have this one be the limiting factor!

Msiwc Loc: Los Angeles

I learned recently at a seminar..the reason for limits on cameras was due to the classification..If they were allowed to record longer, they would face import taxes as a video camera. Therer is a different duty on the two apparently so mfg was forced into limits. I was supprised as you prob are reading this!

Bloke Loc: Waynesboro, Pennsylvania

Yeah... I wondered why on Earth they would limit the time like that. I can't imagine that they would pay that much, though. I bought a little 'action cam' - the poor man's GoPro - last summer. I only paid $40 for it, so I am pretty sure it must be Japanese/Chinese/something-ese. If they can sell those that cheaply, how much duty could they be paying? I also have a panasonic 'handy-cam', which records 5 hours of full-HD on a 32GB SDcard. I think I only paid about $100 for that.

I wouldn't have minded, except that, if I hadn't run this test first, I would have ended up screwed on the night! The manual does not exactly make it clear - until you dig in pretty deeply. This limitation *should* be there in big bold letters, right on the page about shooting movies.

When I ran my tests yesterday, I got 16 minutes of full HD, 20-some minutes of 720, and 59 minutes at 640. The book says as an afterthought that it will only record for an hour even at that resolution.

This is going to make my recording somewhat problematic.
The service runs about an hour - but we give a little concert first on handbells. If I record that, then the recording is going to stop part-way through the service.
I know the 2 camcorders will record longer, but I guess I need to check my P&S, which is going to be the 4th string to my fiddle. I need to get very strategic - there is no way I can wander off down the church in the middle, to reset a camera... Hmmm...