S2-IS Movie Problem

I have have absolutely no problems taking movies using a 1GB High-Speed 60x SD card (made by PQI) and using the highest resolution. I usually can get about 30 minutes of video with no slowdowns and great results. I recently purchased two 2GB cards, identical to the 1GB cards (same manufacturer, same 60x speed). Using either one of those 2GB cards, I can only get 20 seconds of video at the highest resolution before I get a "busy" warning at the bottom of the screen and the movie mode stops. However, if I change the resolution to 320x240 at 30fps I can again record about 30 mins of video. I called Canon and they say the camera isn't the problem. How could just increasing the size of the SD card cause this problem?

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Did you format the cards with the camera?

Yes.

Did you get them via eBay? Unfortunately, it's overrun with counterfeit cards it seems.

The othe possibility you may be seeing is that the design of the PQI cards pre-dates the "official" extension of SD spec to 2 GB, and the tweaks they used to get there just can't cope with that speed.

I will say that I find my A620 maxes out at 9 min/GB storage at best resolution (640x480x30 fps), so I'm a little surprised that the S2 can do a half hour at that resolution.

I purchased the all the PQI cards at Fry's. The 2GB cards are only 2 months old. I've never had a problem getting from 25-35 minutes of video on a 1GB card at the 640x480 30fps resolution. I think the problem is the buffer is getting full, but why is it getting full after only 20 seconds with the 2GB card while it never got full with the 1GB card?

That brings us back to the 2 GB card size; if the PQI cards are an older design, before there was a real standard for SD cards larger than 1 GB, they would have had to play tricks with the system to get that much addressable memory, and that would present problems. I know that my 2 GB SanDisk (blue and Ultra II) both can handle a full 1 GB of video at 640x480x30 fps. Can you borrow a SanDisk card and see what it does?

I don't think its possible to get 20 to 30 minutes of video on a 1Gig card on the S2 since the Canon website has the S2 at 1.9MB/sec at the highest setting. A 512 MB card is rated for 237 seconds or about 4 minutes and about double that for a 1 gig card. Everyone I've talked to and every review I've read seems to agree with this. I would guess that maybe you have it set to a lower quality video setting? MY SD Card running at X45 speed doesn't show any slowdowns during filming but longest I've taken was 4 or 5 minutes.

mishnogram wrote in post #2411428
I don't think its possible to get 20 to 30 minutes of video on a 1Gig card on the S2 since the Canon website has the S2 at 1.9MB/sec at the highest setting. A 512 MB card is rated for 237 seconds or about 4 minutes and about double that for a 1 gig card. Everyone I've talked to and every review I've read seems to agree with this. I would guess that maybe you have it set to a lower quality video setting? MY SD Card running at X45 speed doesn't show any slowdowns during filming but longest I've taken was 4 or 5 minutes.

I agree absolutely........ with best resolution and 30fps one can get max of 8 min video on 1 GB. The camera becomes 'busy' after 8 min (approx). I took exactly 7 min of video at a time on a 2GB card (50x) without hint of any problem.

JIMCHI wrote in post #2409054
I've never had a problem getting from 25-35 minutes of video on a 1GB card at the 640x480 30fps resolution.

You must be making a mistake about either resolution or fps setting. With the setting you gave, one can have only 8min (max) of video on 1GB.

Jon wrote in post #2408504
Did you get them via eBay? Unfortunately, it's overrun with counterfeit cards it seems.

The othe possibility you may be seeing is that the design of the PQI cards pre-dates the "official" extension of SD spec to 2 GB, and the tweaks they used to get there just can't cope with that speed.

I will say that I find my A620 maxes out at 9 min/GB storage at best resolution (640x480x30 fps), so I'm a little surprised that the S2 can do a half hour at that resolution.

mishnogram wrote in post #2411428
I don't think its possible to get 20 to 30 minutes of video on a 1Gig card on the S2 since the Canon website has the S2 at 1.9MB/sec at the highest setting. A 512 MB card is rated for 237 seconds or about 4 minutes and about double that for a 1 gig card. Everyone I've talked to and every review I've read seems to agree with this. I would guess that maybe you have it set to a lower quality video setting? MY SD Card running at X45 speed doesn't show any slowdowns during filming but longest I've taken was 4 or 5 minutes.

ssd wrote in post #2415763
I agree absolutely........ with best resolution and 30fps one can get max of 8 min video on 1 GB. The camera becomes 'busy' after 8 min (approx). I took exactly 7 min of video at a time on a 2GB card (50x) without hint of any problem.

JIMCHI wrote in post #2409054
I purchased the all the PQI cards at Fry's. The 2GB cards are only 2 months old. I've never had a problem getting from 25-35 minutes of video on a 1GB card at the 640x480 30fps resolution. I think the problem is the buffer is getting full, but why is it getting full after only 20 seconds with the 2GB card while it never got full with the 1GB card?

Could you check your settings again? I really don't think you're getting 20-30 min. on a 1 GB card at 640x480x30 fps.