Hello,

I'm looking to buy an action 3 for vlogging in 4k whilst on holiday. I'm going to get about 2hrs of footage a day for 21 days. How many SD cards would I need? Thanks.

Based on my test here (https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... =289710&pid=3039958) you can record about 84 minutes on a 64GB card using 4K/30/RS/H.265.


That's roughly 0.8GB per minute. So 0.8 * 120 minutes = 96GB for 2 hours.
Do that for 21 days = 21 * 96GB = 2,016GB which is about 2 TB.

osmonauta Posted at 6-10 07:05
Based on my test here (https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... =289710&pid=3039958) you can record about 84 minutes on a 64GB card using 4K/30/RS/H.265.

Jesus. So high. Any way to reduce whilst in 4K or does it just have a set bitrate? Thanks!

The bitrate usually depends on how bright the scene is. I rarely (if ever) use 4K, but when I tried it here and there, 4K was usually between 100-110Mbits on a bright, sunny day (using H265).

I mostly film in 1080p and that gets you 30Mbits on a bright scene but can drop to 17-20 if the scene is dark.

And don't forget that these values (and in my previous post) are for H265. If you use H264, the files will be even bigger.


Oops... and I forgot to mention that a "64GB" card has a 59.4GB usable space after you format the card so using 59GB for the calculation will come out to be about 1.7TB (as opposed to 2, but it's close anyway).

osmonauta Posted at 6-10 08:21
The bitrate usually depends on how bright the scene is. I rarely (if ever) use 4K, but when I tried it here and there, 4K was usually between 100-110Mbits on a bright, sunny day (using H265).

I mostly film in 1080p and that gets you 30Mbits on a bright scene but can drop to 17-20 if the scene is dark.

Ah damn, yea I can't use h265, my computer won't process it well...and it's not a bad Macbook either. Cheers.

Just use 1080p. Your eye won't even tell the difference. But your sc card will lmao.

b9y Posted at 6-10 07:40
Jesus. So high. Any way to reduce whilst in 4K or does it just have a set bitrate? Thanks!

Record at the 2.7k setting instead, you can still export an edit upsized at 4K or 2k 1440p for most platforms.
Or at least be flexible - for some spectacular place 4K by all means but vlogish scenes 1080p is enough
The best solution is download footage daily to a laptop or whatever.
You could take a decent sized external drive and have a backup on that.

Hi there. Thank you for reaching out. You may refer to the SD Card recording time below:

The formula is :
Time(minutes) = capacity(G)*1024/(Rate(Mbps)/8*60)

For example :
16G , 4k 60P ,rate is 100Mbps
recording time = 16*1024/(100/8*60) = 21.8 minutes
256G , 4k 60P ,rate is 100Mbps
recording time = 256*1024/(100/8*60) = 349.5 minutes
But for SD card manufacturers, Actually 1G=1000M, not 1024M
So the time should be
recording time = 256*1024/(100/8*60) = 341.3 minutes or less because the real capacity will be less than 256G
So recording time is about 341minutes
Different device has different rates in different video format, please check the list

djiuser_zKR5HFX3a2EC Posted at 6-10 09:00
Just use 1080p. Your eye won't even tell the difference. But your sc card will lmao.

If videos are watched on a 4K 55" TV, you indeed see the difference, or you need new glasses :-D
Not everyone is just using a smartphone to watch videos.

Fr4p4d1ngu3 Posted at 6-11 05:13
If videos are watched on a 4K 55" TV, you indeed see the difference, or you need new glasses :-D
Not everyone is just using a smartphone to watch videos.

The quality of the video you see is determined by the pixel density of the display device. Hi-res displays (like a MacBook Pro) have pixel densities over 220 while 4K television have usually less than half of that. That goes for 4K computer displays, too. Many of them have pixel densities under 200. The new Apple displays which are 27 and 32 inches (and cost an arm and a leg) also have ppi over 200 so a 1080 recording will look razor sharp on them (provided you view it at 100% zoom).

But when you look at a 55" 4K TV (at 4096x2160) it has a pixel density of only about 84. So it's understandable you need to record in 4K in order to see something recognizable at that size.

See this post:
https://forum.dji.com/forum.php? ... 319&pid=3016868

720P was watched on larger tvs called the Aiptek HD720P model IMHO

want long shots go for it,   prepare as you are   good luck  based on  the way we use the camera it will do fine, I did 5 hours on a excursion per day, used one card. was a 64gb card  in 2015   maybe Osmo is more up to date then me