In other words, yes, it is because of the fact that it's FAT32. All that other stuff about Canon not bothering to get past that limitation doesn't matter, because it's still FAT32 which created the limitation. So yes, it is because of FAT32.

Jesse,

You are right that FAT32 limits the size of each file, but some cameras start a new file automatically without any gap between clips. Stitch them together and you can get a long take.

Presumably, the reason that Canon doesn't do that is that any device that records more than 30 minutes of video is considered a video camera, and in some regions that increases the tariff.

So, FAT32 explains the 4GB per file limit, but not the overall recording limit.

You can place the blame wherever you want, but the fact remains that other camera systems use FAT32 and have unlimited recording times. Ergo, de facto, obviously, it is possible to have unlimited recording times on a FAT32 system. Therefore, the limitation is not and cannot be laid solely at the feet of FAT32.

Oh Uh
 

it is fat !! Why Windows is not longer using it, that is the reason as the Canon has this limit ALLL over the world.
Reformated the 4 gb card in my Blackberry with a win format on my linux machine, it works fine but I do get ...mediacard formated with errors. There are no. It is not a proper fat 32.....genuine windows, came out as fat from Debian, but it is not a real win 32 fat....haha.
that I do think is an asnwer.
why a D7 bought in Bangkok has a 4 gig limitation, why a D7 from California has it ?
nothing to to with Europe as they don't realize a customs yet this can do film, it is a stil camara from tax definition, dead easy like the Nikon 3Ds

The 4gig limit exists because of using 32bit pointers - it actually exists in many places independent of FAT32. FAT32 just happens to be one very well used standard with 32bit pointers and limitations.

Apparently, Quicktime itself has some 4gig limitations as well. Regardless of the file system, exporting a greater than 4gig Mpeg4 QT movie will cause the file to be corrupted.

The Quicktime Mpeg2 decoder also cannot handle > 4gig files. Apple has acknowledge it as a bug.

U got it
nothing to do with Europen customs regulations,
Great

Nope... it's got lots to do with the EU. Canon already has the solution - it's already in use in millions of camcorders and other products, the EU tax situation is one of the reasons why it won't implement them for the DSLRs.

It's a very easy software solution - if there's a 4gig file size problem not just in fat32 but also quicktime, then you simply start spanning files.

I don't think there's just _one_ reason, there are _many_ reasons, the EU tax situation is just one of them, and a fairly big one judging by the response of all the DSLR manufacturers like Nikon and Pentax don't have a video division to protect, not just Canon.

Chris and Kin are right, as usual... :)

why the hell do u have a Win 64 bit to have use of more than 4GB memory
name it !!!!!!
it is not Brussels..


why the hell, even if I'm blonde and my D7 I'm playing with
I got way outside EU, 12 hours flight, it is bought there !!!
Beside I'm holding it in my hands it has never been in Europe before.

Don't blame Europe,
for tax regulation the D7 is not a cam corder, custonms would go crazy if u ask them.
In all shops it is not sitting next to cam corders but to Sony alpha, Pentax and the rest.

Even if u buy a car in Uk and bring it to France they can not read a single document !!!
same with cars goin to Germany from US.

The D7 is in no custom document listed as a cam corder, it is not !!!!!!!!
A cam corder doing photo is never listed as such a thing.

go for it
telecoms tell u here if u use skype on a blackberry or i phone with g3+ the
they will put an end to ur contract with them....
how the hell they should know, as skype is sending data,
that is voip.... there is so mutch rubbish going round

Europe who know about
quite nobody

......

and if it works in a camcorder look to data rate
and chip size
ther is never ever a chip something like from a D5 in a prosumer cam corder !!!!!!

Europe and video
 

to give a bit light in the dark
there is a regulation on camcorders not to be used as a recoder for data coming from outside the camcorder to protect Philipls and all since the VHS time......

there have been camcorders to be used as this 20 years ago in US and Asia,
and there have been ways know here in Europe to do exact this.......

That is the only regulation that still exist.

why take the flascard out put in in an Mac or Linux or Win and reformat it
what should be do a regulation>>>>>>>

The Emperor's New Clothes...springs to mind.

I take it you're just ranting.... because I'm getting a headache just trying to read that.

just imagine is Europe the biggest market..NO
US all over and Asia YES

So why the hell should Canon if there would be a stupid Eu regulation

adopt it all over the world ???

Blackberry way smaller maket share has a special model ,,,azerty,,, and other things
only for France, the junk they have to adopt to French telecoms

they don't have in UK, thanks.

Canon would change it If U from US blaming Europe would cry on Canon
to get rid of the 4 gb limitation.

I'm shure u use all an operating system that can adress more than 4 Gb
all US is on Win 7 64 bit ...ok

but blaming Europe is so dead easy
maybe a D7 will overheat in US and not Europe as it is cold here.
hang on do your math on pointers, speed and some stuff like this.

definite ranting :)

Because there's only one single version of the camera, Gina. There's only one model sold worldwide. Since there's only one model, the limitation exists in all of the cameras. They aren't doing separate production runs for different countries.

Much as I loathe the EU (I love Europe, but despise the unelected gravy train that dictates what shape my bananas are), I think it's actually a myth that it's down to the bureaucrats in Brussels why we have a 12 minute record limit. Even wikipedia (not that it means much) puts it down to the FAT32 file limit.

Still the EU did put a tax on the JVC HD101, simply because they had the audacity to put a firewire input on the camera. So, let's blame them anyway - tossers:)

U got it, I do blow my trumpet and as Chris put it on the rails, there is only one model all over the world. I do know Brussels, they are crazy like a lot in DC US. Take a look to the Nikon D3S, they write a lot more on a card, due to very high compression and it is 700 something only taratara. ok Brussels is specialist for bananas, tractor seats, french chease, but on film making they are dead stupid and do know maybe Arri and Aataon, not more... have a nice weekend

with the firewire ok it can be used in both directions and as I wrote it is to protect Philips, and the rest of the recording mafia...haha that is protection, well known in the US

I wish that someone from Canon would give a definitive answer to this question but until then my opinion is just as valid as that of everyone else & I doubt that this limitation on recording time has anything to do with the tax regime in the EU.

On entering the EU the customs duty on a camcorder is 4.9% while it is 0% for a stills camera. A digital camera is classified as a camcorder if it can record more than 30 minutes of video at a quality at or exceeding 800x600 pixels at 23 frames per second or more. Classifying television cameras, video cameras and still digital cameras | Business Link The Canon HD DSLRs don't approach anywhere near this limit as the 640x480 mode is irrelevant & the 720p & 1080p modes could record up to 29'59" without being subject to the camcorder duty.

As a point of comparison for readers outside Europe sales tax (VAT/TVA) here is typically around 20% in addition to the customs duty. The customs duty will be levied based on the wholesale price of the camera when it is imported. So if a Canon 7D retails at 1500 Euros subjecting it to the 4.9% camcorder duty would not add even 50 Euros to the price. I seriously doubt that a Japanese company selling worldwide will make a design decision based on the fact that a particular model will cost the European consumer 45 Euros extra on a 1500 Euro camera.

Specific European models of DV camcorders without Firewire input were produced because otherwise they were classed as VCRs with an import duty of 14.9%. If Canon thought that the extra 45 Euros were a significant disincentive to sales of the 7D in the EU they could produce a different firmware version for Europe that avoided the camcorder classification.

So the current Canon DSLRs would be at most about 3% more expensive to the consumer in Europe if the camcorder duty were levied BUT the cameras could record HD video for more than double the current 12 minutes & still not be subject to camcorder duty.

If u could read Chris put it out the 4 GB limit is all over the world
and it is stoneage fat 32 known to all windofs users, good morning
it starts to get boring

Canon has god reason to do this

NOT TO VANDALISE his camcorder market share

good morning
nobody would buy them in a year or so .......

I agree that the 4GB limit is really annoying, and the reasons could be numerous, some business, some technical. It's true that all flash-recording based camcorder create files with the 4GB limit because they use the FAT32 file system. Other file systems don't have that limit.

I don't agree with some posters that even Quicktime has the limit, for example, I've used Final Cut Pro to capture HDV tapes for many years and the files, if the original recording is contiguous, can be more than 4GB. I have some files that are up to 13GB in length (on the Macintosh HFS+ file system.) Now if Quicktime was used to save files to a FAT file system, it would be limited to 4GB.

Getting back to the Canon DLSR 4GB limit: I purchased one of the early flash-based camcorders in 2007, the Panasonic SD1. It's a remarkable little camcorder, and uses SDHC cards of basically any size. I started with 8GB cards, and now I'm using 16GB cards with it and it handles them no problem. It also has the annoying 4GB limit. Because it's using a very compressed AVCHD 17mbs codec, I get about 45 minutes of recording time before the camcorder stops recording and goes into pause mode.

I usually don't record takes more than 45 minutes with the SD1, so I don't usually run into this problem. However, the other day, I was recording a band, and had it as the "C" camera situated at the back of the stage toward the audience, and set it to record. The performance lasted 3 hours, but I only got 45 minutes of it. I was annoyed, because if I had thought about it I would have remember the limit and done something to start recording.

Did Panasonic think about this limit? Maybe. Did they come out with an updated firmware to fix it? No. The amount of work to fix the firmware, or possibly even update hardware wasn't worth it for the potential business that was lost because of the limit. It may not just be a simple firmware (software) issue, there are other issues, such as buffering the previous 4GB clip before starting recording the next clip to make sure there are no gaps, which might require more or faster internal memory. Some camcorder makers have addressed this limit and can make seamless back-to-back files, others have not. I believe that the Panasonic GH1 has a 29 minute limit in Europe, whereas in the US I think it creates a new file at the 4GB limit. (But I'm not sure, I don't have one).

My Sony EX1 and JVC HM100 don't have this limit. They create a new file at 4GB, seamlessly. In your NLE your string them together and there are no gaps. They are pro camcorders and they would definitely lose business if they couldn't record over 4GB.

Would I love for the Canon DSLRS to remove the limit? Yes. Would I pay more for a model that features it? You betcha! I'd probably pay $1,000 more for this feature. Would Canon make back it's investment for the several thousand potential customers? Maybe, maybe not.

I hope that Canon removes this limit on their future DSLRs, or even these with firmware updates, however I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime I'm considering some type of silent timer that I can set at 10 minutes that will let me know to press the record button without interrupting interviews, where I have experienced this problem several times ("oops - missed that last part, let me press record again..".)

Just my 2 cents.

-Keith

I bet they never do, just imagine the XL H1A great ergonomic 3 ccd some blurring fast moves, a beast, for 3 grant plus uncompressed HD.SD-SDI output Genlock, timecode. Ur customers say a real tool. I do know it very well. For the holy grail of DOF and the fun to have tons of glasses, focus pulling look there..... IndiSYSTEM - Studio 4 Productions and other stuff u can get a set up that has not the ergonomics of the XL H1a but how often did I use all the screens and stuff on this cam, very rare.
U got it, they don't like to canibalize this market is the same with all this Smart Toyota micro cars.....I do drive an Aygo on fat tyres with a nice paint scheme and a decend sound system...small is sexy they don't know what to do
this camera tehered no flascard but an fancy adaptor to an laptop with 2 Sata disk holding 5 hours and a program would start the next 4 gb rel with some overlap seamless, will blow all prosumer and entry level camcorder with a price tag like 12 grant away.

Canon does know this on some level!!!!!!!

A definitive answer, as in the form of a press release? There is no compelling reason for them to issue one. It's never going to happen.

If it helps, I've been told by someone fairly high up the chain at Canon USA that the limitation is indeed due to the EU tax situation. That's neither an official answer or a definitive one, but at least it goes beyond opinion and into the realm of anecdotal information.

Ultimately the point is that the limitation does in fact exist. The question then becomes: is there any practical way to overcome it. The best, most viable possibility lies in the potential of a firmware hack such as Magic Lantern. That effort is a productive one which may actually yield some results.

What does *not* yield results, however, is ranting on this forum. I can understand if someone feels the need to rant, and I wholeheartedly encourage anyone in a ranting mood to exercise their right to freedom of speech and rant away on their own blog / forum / site / whatever. Meanwhile, please show some respect for DV Info Net and keep the interaction here focused on results that everyone can use. While blowing off steam with a rant might feel good to the person doing it, unfortunately it has the opposite effect on those who have to read it -- there's nothing positive or useful for others to carry away, and therefore serves no worthwhile purpose here.

I'm not sure why this thread grew to be so long, but to ultimately answer the original poster's question of "what is the maximum sustained recording length," it is:

Roughly twelve minutes of HD video or 29 minutes and 59 seconds of SD video.

Thanks everyone,