Quicktime and GB?

Michael Ryan. wrote:
... I'm going to convert it to Quicktime to download to an SD memory card. Is there an average as to how many GB one hour of Quicktime video is?

that is an exotic workflow - back to SDcard? why that? what for?

'Quicktime' is no format nor codec. it is first of all an architecture for handling media, stills, audio, music, VR, moving images. the QTengine usually delivers in a media-container, well-known as .mov (plus a few others, e.g.mp4 ...).

Inside such a wrapper, QT allows usage of dozends of codecs, as h264, m-jpeg, sorenson, etc etc.

unfortunately, it does NOT deliver any codec it allows for playback, as mp2 (and I assume, you like to create a .mts, which is basically/internal mp2..) ..

so, depending on YOUR export-settings, as resolution, frame-rate, bit-rate and codec, a 'Quicktime movie' can have size of 40GBs/h down to a few MBs/h ..

perhaps you get better help, telling us what you like to accomplish...

Hi(Bonjour)!

The frame size, frame rate, bit rate,audio sampling rate are relevant to +final quality+ and size of the movie. Remember that H.264 needs quicktime 7 to be played on your friend computer.

Many editors use dedicated app like Apple Compressor (part of FCS) that includes presets for specific needs. Usually iPod and web delivery compression give very good result in small container (.mov file).
So, options used in those compression sets can be used directly in quicktime conversion dialogs within FCE. No need of dedicated app. (altough Quicktime Pro is worth every penny it costs).

From FCE in the +quicktime export with conversion+ dialog, there are many settings that can be tweaked to produce the smallest file or the one with best quality.

Look at those link about H.264 compression options to understand basic concept in video compression:
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/compressor_h-264_moviesfcp.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/qt_h-264_moviesfcp.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/ipad_video_encodingtaylor.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/video_to_ipodstone.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/you_tube_reduxgary.html
http://www.kenstone.net/fcphomepage/youtube_compressorgary.html

Finally, it's better to copy the movie from SD card to computer hard disk to avoid dropped frame on monitoring.

Why not use a data CD (0.10$/unit)?

Michel Boissonneault

It depends on the settings you use when you export to H.264. You should do a few tests (say 10 minutes of video) at different settings (frame rate & compression quality) to see what your results will be.

That said, you could +roughly estimate+ 1-2GB/hr for 720x480 and 15-20GB/hr for 1920x1080

Michael Ryan. wrote:
... to the SD card (via H.264) and when I played it back I noticed it looked FANTASTIC!! To my eye it looked like almost no drop in quality. So I started to send my projects out to people on SD card (an SD card reader only costs between 10-20 dollars and hooks up to your USB port) and those people were really happy with the quality.

.. ahhh! got it.. ! still exotic 😉

you get usb-sticks for less than half the price of SDcards same 'size' (rule of thumb here: 2x€ per GB, a 4GB-stick=8€) .. and no card-reader needed. you get'em in all colors, sizes and shapes .. I've seen 'branded' sticks, e.g. the latest Volvo was presented by a website, stored on a stick, with all info, video etc. - instead of on 'dead trees'.
this is how I deliver my HDef-projects to my son('s PS3).
for 1280x720 (my res), a peek of 6Mbit/sec is enough - for my quality standards.
resulting files are small and good looking.

you read some suggestions on estimated sizes in the other replies.

hint: SDcards usually are formatted fat32 (=old 'Windows') - which has a limit of 4GB per file. so, beyond some length, that doesn't 'fit' onto a card (or a fat32-formatted stick).

happy sharing

Michael Ryan. wrote:
.... USB drive ... to watch the same video on an ordinary television set?

define 'ordinary' 😉

there're few devices, e.g. Panasonic, which offer a built-in usb-connector - if the 'video' fullfills some specific specifications, such TVs playback files-on-sticks.

but ...
the usual way is usage of a socalled MediaPlayer

- a tiny box which translates the content of a usb- or regular hard-drive to rgb, hdmi, hf .. whatever connection your TV offers.

the MediaPlayer comes with its own remote - see it as a DVDplayer, instead of disks, it plays drives.