Maximum video length?

Pjyarnall · Feb 25, 2019

I am doing quite well and having fun using the M2P for still photography... my primary focus. However I am starting to record video as I am close to some amazing geography. I appear to have stumbled on to some sort of limit for my videos. I took one that I was sure was recording that was nearly 14 minutes. After landing to review I had nothing longer than 5 minutes. Several were exactly 5 with maybe an extra second. I am recording in 4K 30FPS. I can't seem to find anything in the menus that are an obvious clue. In doing so I did find a setting for video caching... which I confess I do not understand at all.

Any help for a video noobie appreciated!

kndll · Feb 25, 2019

DJI limits file size to 4gb

Simmo · Feb 25, 2019

I dont think its DJI per se, but a function of the filing system on the SD card.

Mossiback · Feb 25, 2019

As stated above your situation is to be expected. I would also suggest that you break up your videos into smaller recordings for two reasons: 1) If a long file gets corrupted you lose a lot, and 2) you will find the more interesting videos are made of short recordings edited together.

BD0G · Feb 25, 2019

You an try and format your Micro SD card in NTFS to allow larger files than 4 Gigabyte.
Information on the different formatting options here:
How to format USB flash drive to NTFS, exfat or FAT32. Disk format options

Pjyarnall · Feb 25, 2019

Thanks to all of you! After getting everything in into LR to review, it is obvious now that the file size limit is 3.5 gig, at least in my case. I am relieved to find that when a file reaches its size limit another one automatically begins. So except for a momentary interruption the long flights were indeed recorded. I fully appreciate that no one wants watch all the footage. I was working on the theory that I would record everything and edit later. Mastering the editing part looks a bit daunting, but at least I have some cool footage to learn with.

Any quick explanations for the purpose of video caching and why I should enable it, or not?

Love this forum and grateful for the help!

Pjyarnall · Feb 25, 2019

BD0G said:
You an try and format your Micro SD card in NTFS to allow larger files than 4 Gigabyte.
Information on the different formatting options here:
How to format USB flash drive to NTFS, exfat or FAT32. Disk format options

Excellent point! Thanks... I will look into doing that and see if the file size limit remains.

Mossiback · Feb 25, 2019

Pjyarnall said:
...Any quick explanations for the purpose of video caching and why I should enable it, or not?...

Caching is to your display device and would be in a lower quality to facilitate transmission. I have mine turned off to save storage space and processor use on my under-powered tablet.

Pjyarnall · Feb 25, 2019

Thank you, Mossiback. My iPad Mini has worked well so far with no display issues I can notice. I will leave it off.

Mossiback · Feb 25, 2019

Pjyarnall said:
Thank you, Mossiback. My iPad Mini has worked well so far with no display issues I can notice. I will leave it off.

You are welcome. If your device can handle it you may want to leave caching on. Although the quality may be reduced it will give you the ability to review footage without needing to land and pull the SD card. I do not record much video so have reduced need.

msinger · Feb 25, 2019

BD0G said:
You an try and format your Micro SD card in NTFS to allow larger files than 4 Gigabyte.

That won't allow the Mavic to record video larger than 4GB. There is no way to exceed that limit.

Pjyarnall · Feb 25, 2019

msinger said:
That won't allow the Mavic to record video larger than 4GB. There is no way to exceed that limit.

Ok, I can certainly plan on clips that are 5 minutes or less. I am curious, though... if 4GB
Is the limit, why are all my files showing 3.5GB?

msinger · Feb 25, 2019

Pjyarnall said:
why are all my files showing 3.5GB?

Great question. I'm not sure, but I can tell you my files don't split exactly at 4GB either.

StevenTheGeek · May 15, 2019

Just an FYI on this thread for some fun facts. The h265 compression on Mavic 2 has a max rate of 100Mb/s so that equates to 3.5GB over 5 minutes. The Mavic doesn't have a 4GB file size limit, it has exFAT capability which has a soft limit of 128 petabyte file size.

They have decided to allow backward compatibility with fat32 formatted cards so making the 4gb a limit per file. The easy way for them to do that was to chapter the files at 5 minutes time based. It's purely a software choice for easy support and could easily change that in the future if they wanted.

Chas2379 · May 17, 2019

Simmo said:
I dont think its DJI per se, but a function of the filing system on the SD card.

You are limited to 4GB no mater what format you use, what card you use or what DJI Drone you use. No way around it. Have to stitch videos together. Might lose frames,. No way around it period.

WithTheBirds · May 17, 2019

BD0G said:
You an try and format your Micro SD card in NTFS to allow larger files than 4 Gigabyte.
Information on the different formatting options here:
How to format USB flash drive to NTFS, exfat or FAT32. Disk format options

It is unlikely the NAVIC supports NTFS. Exfat is supported but we arent dealing with a file system issue here. It is the mp4 container that is the problem. Max file size is 2 to the power of 32 bytes, 4Gb in round figures.

tlap · Apr 21, 2020

Actually, as opposed to FAT32, ExFAT technically does allow for files larger than about 4 gigs. But as Chas2379, WithTheBirds and others on this forum have said, DJI currently limits videos to about 5 minutes before creating another one. I personnally am not a fan. I have a 128 gig SD card and would like to have the option to create 10 minute + videos. I hope they change with for those with larger exFAT formatted cards.

WithTheBirds · Apr 21, 2020

tlap said:
Actually, as opposed to FAT32, ExFAT technically does allow for files larger than about 4 gigs. But as Chas2379, WithTheBirds and others on this forum have said, DJI currently limits videos to about 5 minutes before creating another one. I personnally am not a fan. I have a 128 gig SD card and would like to have the option to create 10 minute + videos. I hope they change with for those with larger exFAT formatted cards.

The 4GB limit isn't a DJI decision so there is nothing they might, or in fact could, do- it is the 32 bit AVI container design (32 bit addressing). 2^32=4GB.