estimated size of a video clip

[ansmit]

Total rookie needs help. Looking to post video clips on my wife's website, but host has a 30MB limit per video upload. We're looking at cameras and thinking HD, but are completely confused about camera specs relative to recording time. The Canon Vixia M30, for instance, records 1 hour in FXP setting for full HD onto an 8GB drive, but the "speed" of that setting is 17mbps. I asked Canon if 17 mbps means the file size accumulates at 17 megabytes/second...they said yes. However, a 8GB drive (8000MB) at 17mbps would only record for 470 seconds (7.8 minutes). Something doesn't make sense.

I really just need to know how to estimate the size of a video file verses time and camera "rate" (I don't know what to call 17mbps) if there is some way. I have a feeling that shooting in HD is going to be a problem with the 30MB upload limit.

Thanks very much for whatever simple advice you can offer.

[Baldrick]

No. 17 mega BITS per second is 2.125 mega BYTES per second. (1 bit=8 bytes so 17/8)

Bitrate * runtime = file size. Or use a bitrate calculator, https://www.videohelp.com/tools/sections/bitrate-calculators

[poisondeathray]

filesize = bitrate x running time

generally you wouldn't upload native clips, you would process them to a smaller dimension and lower bitrate for websites. If you shot interlaced, you would have to deinterlace for web as well.

generally you should record at the highest bitrate for the highest quality; if you record at a low quality mode, then process that, the results will be worse

there are other free hosting options, and video sharing sites, like vimeo.com or blip.tv . Some have much larger limits on filesize

[True Colors]

This is slightly off topic, and you may have already taken this into consideration, but......

Are you using your own personal website for this? If so, how much bandwith per month does the host provider give you? If you load a bunch of video files and have a lot of people looking at them then you might overshoot the amount of traffic covered under your current plan.

Also...... how much storage space does your website host provider give you? If you are planning on storing your video files on your website then you could eventually fill up your storage space and/or have to pay for a higher plan to get more capacity.

And lastly...... in my own personal experience, uploading videos to sites like vimeo, youtube, etc. is much easier than uploading video to your own personal website.

Looks like vimeo.com might be a good solution for you. At least worth checking into.

TC