Why can't digicams endlessly record video?

Krassus

Golden Member
Jan 30, 2003
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Why is it that digicams always seem to have a "maximum clip length" for video? My new Canon S230 can record as much video as the card can handle, but it all has to be divided up into 30 sec clips. Why exactly are they doing this?
 

psteng19

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2000
5,953
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The limitations of the internal memory, that's what the video clips are written to.
You're card may hold 256 MB, but it's not fast enough to write directly to so it writes to the buffer first, then to the CF.

Sony's Digicams can record for as long as the Memory stick can hold, but that's a totally different type of memory technology, which some may argue is superior.

I may be completely talking about of my ass, but I think I read this somewhere and it seems logically correct :p
 
Aug 16, 2001
22,505
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Because the memory cards are relatively slow and the camera uses the internal buffer to store video and then writes to memory.

Not 100% sure, someone can probably correct me on this.