I discovered, only after the fact, that this Samsung camera will only shoot 20 minutes of video at a time. At that point, it stops. I guess that to use for my intended purpose I will have my wife hit the record button again every 20 minutes. Nor does there seem to be any way to work around that.
I wish that someone had told me that when I bought it.
Wow. This limit is apparently a tariff requirement!
UPDATE: There are apparently two different reasons for the limits: 30 minutes is apparently an EU tariff requirement (Samsung can't make a U.S. version?) and 20 minutes because of overheating. Either way, I am pretty upset with Idaho Camera. I normally would have bought from Amazon, but I wanted the expertise of a salesman with whom I could discuss what I needed. I told him that I was going to give a speech, and I wanted a way to record it in HD. I am assuming that he did not know about the 20 minute video limit, or he would have sold me a video camera instead. Unfortunately, I am past the 14 day exchange/refund time on this.
UPDATE 2: I went into Idaho Camera today, and the salesman I talked to immediately knew about the 20 minute video limit, and even though I was past the 14 day exchange/refund limit, he cheerfully applied my refund towards a considerably less expensive Samsung HD 720p video camera. Yes, I might have bought this same camera a bit cheaper on Amazon, but I was already there, and I have it now.
There's just no end of things the government does to help us, is there?
ReplyDeleteFrom reading a bit on the subject, if it's 20 minutes, then it's overheating that is causing the limitation. If it's 29 minutes and 59 seconds, that's the tariff.
ReplyDeleteMy Nikon D3200 SLR also has a 20 minute (or 4gb) video limit. No explanation why.
ReplyDeleteWell, if Idaho Camera won't make it good, then I shall not purchase anything from Idaho Camera.
ReplyDeleteOf course, being in Montana, thats not much of a threat....but you don't have to tell them that!
If the salesman recommended something that did not meet your clearly expressed needs, they should take it back.
ReplyDeleteI actually had a local gun store let me return a gun for that reason. I was very specific about something I wanted, the salesman said a particular gun fit the bill, and he was wrong. The manager gave me a cash refund on the gun and took it back.
There's a another thing that's a real problem for cameras. If your flash card is formatted in FAT32 you can't record more than a 4GB file, and that's about what an 20 minute HD file runs at 720p. At 1080p you're talking about roughly 12 minutes of recording time.
ReplyDeleteYou might check your card format and make sure you're not bumping up against that limitation.
PhaseMargin: Great idea. I reformatted it as NTFS -- but the camera does not recognize NTFS, only FAT32. And even at 320x240 resolution, it limits you to 20 minutes of video at a time.
ReplyDeleteBummer on the format.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if there's something similar to Magic Lantern for Samsungs, but if you've got the appropriate Canon DSLR sitting around that's a way to work around the tariff problem using auto-restart(the "appropriate Canon" being defined as those that support exFAT and Magic Lantern) I like Magic Lantern and recommend it if you've got a supported Cannon, and best of all it's GPL! I wouldn't necessarily recommend to to a non-hacker, but it should be pretty comfortable to a techie to install and use, and the additional features are pretty nice.
Have you talked to Idaho Camera about it yet? Maybe they can provide a workaround or will make it good. Refund or trade for a compact video unit. You can tell them your friends heard about it and are inclined to not do business with them based on them not making it good. I tend to buy my gear online from the camera dealers in NY. But I have only bought two cameras from ID Camera over the past 25 years. A used Canon T90 35 mm and a new 7 MP Canon S70 and the latter was 6-7 years ago....
ReplyDeleteI emailed Idaho Camera about this Sunday. I will go in tomorrow in person if I don't hear back from them today, at least to let them know that they should be aware of this for future customers (of which I won't be one).
ReplyDelete