What am I doing wrong?

[AV/PC]

When I put my Air-2 up and start recording I usually fly until the battery tells me to come home. When I pull out the Micro SD card and put it into my computer to view the video, It shows that the one flight was split-up into two or three files. Why is it not one 20-min video. Do I have something set wrong in the camera settings?

 

[Jagerbomb52]

It normal. Depending on what resolution of video you are recording it will split them into about 5 gig files or close to it. It has to do with the file structure on the SD card I was told. They will seamlessly join together in any video editor.

 

[66427cobra]

It normal. Depending on what resolution of video you are recording it will split them into about 5 gig files or close to it. It has to do with the file structure on the SD card I was told. They will seamlessly join together in any video editor.

The FAT32 file system used to format micro SD cards (<32GB) limits the maximum file size to 4GB. When you reach that limit the software starts a new file even if the video is continuous. This is not something unique to DJI. It also happens with GoPro cameras (and I'm sure many other devices).

You can use video editing software to splice the individual files together to create a single video file...as long as the file system is not FAT32. Reasonably current versions of Windows use NTFS and Mac uses HFS+. Both can accommodate huge file sizes well beyond what can fit on the SD card in your drone.

exFAT formatting is used on SD cards greater than 32GB. exFAT does allow files larger than 4GB but I think DJI and GoPro still store the video in 4GB chunks. Probably much simpler from a development/processing standpoint and the smaller files remain compatible if you move them to a FAT32 file system. Plus, if one of the 4GB files in a sequence is corrupted you don't lose everything.

 

[Amckim2084]

It normal. Depending on what resolution of video you are recording it will split them into about 5 gig files or close to it. It has to do with the file structure on the SD card I was told. They will seamlessly join together in any video editor.

I always thought it was because if it recorded too long of a video on a single file, it would be counted as a camcorder and therefore cost more money for the company to sell the products.

 

[eEridani]

Either an OS limitation having to do with the size of the pointer used to index the memory (or using the disk as virtual memory), or the filesystem itself not having space in the allocation table : each sector of the 'disk' must be mapped and there's only so much space available in the filesystem design: FAT, FAT32, exFAT, NFS, NTFS, ReFS, ext4, etc.

 

[Dave Maine]

The problem is correctly described earlier by several posters. FAT32 is file spec developed by Microsoft that specifically limits file sizes to 4gB approximately. When it was released, that was plenty of space. Now a days not so much.

The FAT32 file spec applies to all digital files, not just video files. A page layout file longer than the spec will also be broken into segments as well. It has nothing to do with being a video camera output file.

DJI has not taken advantage of the exFAT format provided by MS that removes that limitation. While it is quite easy to load the segmented files sequentially in a video editor and have it play properly. It does create some special handling issues doing complex edits, which need to be duplicated each time a segmented clip set is used. DJI is clearly not making it as easy as it could for video editors, and deserves to be criticized.

 

[Deleted member 154422]

When I put my Air-2 up and start recording I usually fly until the battery tells me to come home. When I pull out the Micro SD card and put it into my computer to view the video, It shows that the one flight was split-up into two or three files. Why is it not one 20-min video. Do I have something set wrong in the camera settings?

Something to do with size limitation built into software. Shoot at lower res, video will be longer. If you watch your recordings within the dji app, it splices them into one continuous video. Im new, haven t found a work around yet. Probably need video editing software idk...good luck

 

[hiflyer201]

It goes together seamlessly in any case

 

[Arnold LeVine]

try shooting 1080 video at 30 fps and your 20 minute flight will be a single file possibly less than 2gig.
Shoot 4k at 60fps and your 20 minute flight will be split into 3-4 or maybe more 4Gig files.
As explained above, the max file size is 4Gig, then it starts a new file.

 

[Lets Fly]

When I put my Air-2 up and start recording I usually fly until the battery tells me to come home. When I pull out the Micro SD card and put it into my computer to view the video, It shows that the one flight was split-up into two or three files. Why is it not one 20-min video. Do I have something set wrong in the camera settings?

When I shoot in 4K with my M2Z, I get 4:51. When I switch to 1080 P I get 14:20 before the split.

 

[LA 2020]

When I put my Air-2 up and start recording I usually fly until the battery tells me to come home. When I pull out the Micro SD card and put it into my computer to view the video, It shows that the one flight was split-up into two or three files. Why is it not one 20-min video. Do I have something set wrong in the camera settings?

There is a maximum file size limit for videos. They do sync together perfectly though. This is likely done so that file size are easier to handle when transferring and when using editing software

 

[Brigs66]

When I put my Air-2 up and start recording I usually fly until the battery tells me to come home. When I pull out the Micro SD card and put it into my computer to view the video, It shows that the one flight was split-up into two or three files. Why is it not one 20-min video. Do I have something set wrong in the camera settings?

I have that with panorama photos, but never with videos..

 

[coldsweat]

I always thought it was because if it recorded too long of a video on a single file, it would be counted as a camcorder and therefore cost more money for the company to sell the products.

The camcorder classification limit is 30 minutes so not applicable here - as others have mentioned the 4gb file sizes are to do with the manufacturer ensuring file size compatibility with certain SD card formatting.