How many minutes of video can I fit on the 16-gigabyte Secure Digital memory card in my camera
The amount of video you can fit on your camera’s memory card can depend on the camera, the image quality and any special-effects modes you may be using while filming. The video section of your camera’s manual should have some specific answers on recording times for the different settings. If you chucked your manual right after you got the camera or cannot find it, check the support area of your manufacturer’s Web site or try an online manual repository like Retrevo.
For example, on the PowerShot S95 camera, Canon’s manual says you should be able to fit approximately one hour, 42 minutes and 57 seconds of video on a 16-gigabyte car when recording video at the high-definition setting of 1,280 by 720 pixels (at 24 frames per second). Switching to the standard-quality setting of 640 by 480 pixels (at 30 frames per second) lets you fit two hours, 59 minutes and three seconds of video on a 16-gigabyte SD card.
If you drop the quality level even lower to the 320 by 240 pixels (at 30 frames per second) setting, you can store more than eight hours of video on the card. Video clips may have a maximum size of four gigabytes or around 30 minutes in length at the high-definition setting, but you can resume recording new clips until the card is full.
While your camera’s manual should have more precise information, the SD Association, (an industry group devoted to creating technical standards for the Secure Digital format), has some basic information on how many minutes of video can fit on SD cards of different capacities on its site. The page! also provides estimates on how many photos or approximate minutes of music fit on various SD cards.
