How many minutes will the iPhone 4S make a continuous 1080p video recording?

adjuvantjfoster · Oct 4, 2011

I use a Contour HD 1080p fixed focus Helmet Cam to record, one period of three hockey game periods at a time. The time to record a 20 minute playing time period is something like 25 to 30 minutes with a file size for each period of just under 4GB.

Will the iPhone 4S record 1080p video for a complete 60 to 90 minute hockey game?

I have not seen anything in the specs or discussion of this for either the iPad2 or the iPhone 4S.

Any thoughts about this?

bab2010 · Oct 5, 2011

Yes I think it will be able to record way more than 90mn if the phone was fully charged. But with 90mn of a 1080p video recording on iphone 4s you might quickly run out of space before running out of battery though.

adjuvantjfoster · Oct 5, 2011

bab2010 said:
Yes I think it will be able to record way more than 90mn if the phone was fully charged. But with 90mn of a 1080p video recording on iphone 4s you might quickly run out of space before running out of battery though.

There is more than enough memory available, if the file system and the video recording software is smart enough to use it in large chunks.

Most helmet cams and small video cams such as the Sony Bloggie appear to have enogh memory but run into the FAT 32 file size limit ( just under 4GB) in less than 30 minutes. Some cameras open another file and keep going, while others simply shut down instead of going on to their advertised 4 hour limit. If I had an iPad 2 I might already know the likely answer.

So my question is more about the limitations the Apple file system and the video recording software than about over all memory availability, and the battery capacity either as is or augmented with a third party external battery.

When I take delivery of mine, I will soon know the answers. For now I was hoping to get an answer from someone who has an iPad 2, or someone who was involved in the video performance testing of either the iPad 2 or the iPhone 4S.

Anybody have anthing they care to share about this?

adjuvantjfoster · Nov 27, 2011

Now that I have a few weeks taking video with my new iPhone 4S my reaction is wow!

I now know that with my 64 GB of memory I can record more that one 60 minute hockey game video.

I have learned that I can take 60 minutes of video with a fully charged iPhone 4S unless I have too many other things also consuming power.

If I turn off everything else I can find a way to turn off, I am good for nearlytwo hours of video.

I have learned that the quickest way to get video files from Camera Roll is to use Apple's Image Capture program, which, on Mac OS Lion, is sitting in the Utilities folder waiting for just that purpose. Connect the iPhone 4S to your Mac USB port, open Zimage Cature. Iteill show a window with your video files in Camera Roll. Drag those files to some folder you wantto use for storage. Done.

I have learned that Apple and Adobe follow the provision of EXIF orientation data that highend cameras use. This means that no matter which of four positions you use for holding the camera while fiming ( Home Button up, down, left or right) the Apple and Adobe software orients the pictures and videos upright. Many other email packages, especially various Windows packages on PCs, do not follow EXIF conventions sothe pictures may end in any offour possible orientations.

Here are links to four short MOV files showing the four orientations for the iPhone 4S. I had to upload them to DropBox for you as all of my available Cloud based mail programs choked on saving or sending these little video files.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7584570/IMG_0061.MOV
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7584570/IMG_0062.MOV
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7584570/IMG_0063.MOV
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7584570/IMG_0064.MOV
I usually record hockey games in Landscape mode with the Home Button of the iPhone on the left side with the screen facing me. That is the mov file IMG_0063.MOV
Apple's QuickTime Player displays it correctly, while the VLC player, which ignores exif flags plays it upside down. So does the Plex Media streamer ignore the flag, so does the thunderbird mail app ignore the flag, and so on. Adobe looks at the exif flags so they get it right.
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My movies are of four Post It Notes, each one describing the location of the Home Button. Take a series of four pictures oriented like my test MOV files , then take 4 short MOV files of the same iPhone orientation. If the results are "misoriented" then the software you are using to look at them is ignoring the orientation flages.
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For more detail of this subject look at* ImpulseAdventure - JPEG / Exif Orientation and Rotation
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JPEG Rotation and EXIF Orientation
Digital Cameras with orientation sensors allow auto-rotation of portrait images. Unfortunately, support for this feature is not widespread or consistently applied.
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Digital Cameras with Orientation Sensors
Many newer digital cameras (both dSLR and Point & Shoot digicams) have a built-in orientation sensor. Virtually all Canon and Nikon digital cameras have an orientation sensor. The output of this sensor is used to set the EXIF orientation flag in the image file's metatdata to reflect the positioning of the camera with respect to the ground. Canon calls their sensor the "Intelligent Orientation" sensor. It is presumably a 2-axis tilt sensor, allowing 4 possible orientations to be detected (shown in the left side of the diagram in the link above).