S2 maximum movie recording capacity?

[vertex11]

The users guide for my S2 says (p 64) "The maximum recording capacity is 1 GB. These figures will vary according to the type of memory cards and their capacity. When the memory card is about to become full or when the file size is about to reach about 1 GB, the remaining shooting time displayed on the lower right corner of the LCD monitor (or viewfinder) will blink red and recording will stop automatically approximately 10 seconds later."

I assume this means that even if I use a 2 GB SD card, that I cannot create a single movie file bigger than about 1 GB. What causes this 1 GB limit? It is apparently independent of the capacity of SD cards larger than 1 GB?

[SBellew]

The 1GB limit is built into the camera's firmware and cannot be altered as far as I am aware. I do not know why they would build in the limit, but I imagine that it has something to do with the system memory of the camera and that factory testing has had negative results when processing a movie file larger than said limit.

[kalpesh]

Someone who is a professional at capturing movie images will tell you that you need not have a single movie which is 1 GB. Ideally you woudl want to have 10-15 secs shot which creates a 'pro' look to your videos.

[kousik_s]

IMHO with hard disk based camcorders coming out (Toshiba, JVC), use of Canon S2 IS as a movie camera is not that important as it was in 2005. These camcorders are expensive, but prices are bound to come down as more manufacturers take this route.

[SaNdMaN82]

As said before, the limit of 1gb is on the camera's firmware and there's nothing you can do right now about that. Maybe a newer firmware will remove that limitation, who knows...

If you want to use the movie features fully, you have to buy a high performance memory card.... When shooting a movie, the writting rate is about 2.0 / 2.5 mbs, and if you decide to take some snaps, even more....

You should consider 60x cards, or even higher.