G9 new trick (compared to earlier models) ?

Last night I filmed a little play that I knew was going to be slightly more than 1/2 an hour (the time limit on movies for the G9) so I had sat through a rehearsal and decided, with the cast, that at about the 20 minute mark there was a natural break where I could stop and then restart movie taking.  That worked perfectly, as expected.

What at first puzzled me, and then pleasantly surprised me, is that there were three .mp4 files, I only had expected two.  The first .mp4 file was about 21 minutes long and (to the best of my knowledge) exactly 4GB long.  The second was very short and was a continuation of the first without any discontinuity.  After that short file is where I stopped the first part, and restarted filming.  The third .mp4 file was the last approximately 11 minutes, as expected.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that that G9 silently closes the 4G file and continues without missing a beat in a new file!   Awesome.

And I wonder... did my old G7 know how to do that? I doubt it, but I may not know, since the G7 had an anti-aliasing filter and therefore would reach the time limit before reaching 4GB file size, at least that's what I remember.

By the way, I used autofocus on the opening number that had lots of people on the stage, I knew it would focus on them, and during that number I switched to manual focus so focus would not shift either to the background or to some audience member who might walk in front of the camera, during filming. I was using the 14-140 II at about 18mm, so I had considerable depth of field.   The blue "in focus" highlights were very reassuring! The results look very good indeed, to me.

My E-M1 II does this as well with seamless 4G breaks in between. I then edit and trim using the free Olympus Workspace then export 4K mp4 footage in one piece.

I understand the FAT32 type SD cards can only write up to 4GB video files.  Has anyone use a 64GB or larger SD card and had the video write larger video files with the G9?

If so, what's the max file size the G9 can write in 4K or 4K 60p?

Thanks.

Reason I ask, is I've never shot over 4GB video clips, 2 to 3GB is about the longest I do.  But, would like to know if it's possible to get larger files with the ExFAT 64GB cards.

JosephScha wrote:

I was pleasantly surprised to see that that G9 silently closes the 4G file and continues without missing a beat in a new file! Awesome.

And I wonder... did my old G7 know how to do that? I doubt it, but I may not know, since the G7 had an anti-aliasing filter and therefore would reach the time limit before reaching 4GB file size, at least that's what I remember.

My G85 and LX10 both do this for 1080p.  Both those two cameras can record longer than 30 minutes, so it may not be a fair comparison, but it shows Panasonic did do this in older cameras.  The G85 won't split the file if it is recording 4K and you have a 64GB SD-XC card (the LX10 can't record more than about 10 minutes of 4K).

So I imagine that the G9 probably also would not split the file at the 4GB limit if you have a SD-XC card and record 4K instead of 1080p.  Given the amount of data 4K produces, I imagine if you have a smaller card than 64GB, the card will fill up first.

Michael Meissner wrote:

JosephScha wrote:

I was pleasantly surprised to see that that G9 silently closes the 4G file and continues without missing a beat in a new file! Awesome.

And I wonder... did my old G7 know how to do that? I doubt it, but I may not know, since the G7 had an anti-aliasing filter and therefore would reach the time limit before reaching 4GB file size, at least that's what I remember.

My G85 and LX10 both do this for 1080p. Both those two cameras can record longer than 30 minutes, so it may not be a fair comparison, but it shows Panasonic did do this in older cameras. The G85 won't split the file if it is recording 4K and you have a 64GB SD-XC card (the LX10 can't record more than about 10 minutes of 4K).

So I imagine that the G9 probably also would not split the file at the 4GB limit if you have a SD-XC card and record 4K instead of 1080p. Given the amount of data 4K produces, I imagine if you have a smaller card than 64GB, the card will fill up first.

Thanks Michael.  That makes sense.  The 32GB cards write FAT32 format, thus the 4GB limit on files.  And the 64GB or larger Extra Capacity SD cards write larger than 4GB files.

For long video files that is the case, 32GB will not hold much in 4K.  A lot of the video shooters using the G9 and GH5 use 128GB SD cards when they shoot long videos.  And some use the 2nd card slot for the overflow.