I keep hearing about this 2gig file limit. But, I haven't yet been able to determine what programs have this limitation. Is the limitation a capture thing or an encoder thing? Or is it certian programs?

Could someone give me a real world example of what they're talking about with this 2gig limit?

As always, thanks for enlightening us all,

-- Michael S. Gilmore (mgilmore@san.rr.com), March 03, 2000

Answers

The 2gig limit is not caused by a spacific program, it is a limitation of Windows itself. The limit is for just the AVI file type whether it be capturing or whatever.

An example would be if you were capturing in AVI format in realtime (and AVI files add up really fast), once you hit 2gig for a single file size, then your capture would stop.

Why Microsoft never fixed this, i dont know.

-- MrVCD (mrvcd@juno.com), March 03, 2000.

Their are a bunch of avi type programs i have seen that overide/wipeout the 2gig file size, enabling you to make a file any size you want

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 04, 2000.

Doug...Can you name some of those programs, please.

-- Angel (angel@aol.com), March 04, 2000.

ANGEL, if i could i would. this was quite a long time ago and i capture using mpeg so i havent paid much attention. However i will look into somethings and if i do see them again (saw at least 3 programs) i will pass them on to you, or post the url here

-- Doug (mazinz@aol.com), March 05, 2000.

Doug....you are the man....posting a reply here will benifit a lot of people like me.

-- Angel (angel@aol.com), March 05, 2000.

LSX (has) and Panasonic encoders (I believe) both stand alone have 2G limits on the input. There are others like the NLE programs such as Adobe Premiere that have the bill gates applied limitation.

What it means is that the limit into these programs is 2G (2048M) but that will not usually be a problem unless your using full frame AVI's. For example I capture at 3.6M/s (216M/minute) so the biggest file I can capture is about 9 minutes. Half size AVI captures and outputs run at around 28 to 33 minutes before the limit is reached.

Most capture programs have the limit as well but in general its effect is not felt in mpeg capture systems. It often depends on the capture card as well. However if you work from the timeline with full frame avi's and keep each file below 2G the limit on output as a MPEG only has the size of the CD to contend with.

The bbMPEG program (which is not to be updated again) has the option to encode several avi programs into one output file so each input can be up to 2G's and the output due to resizing and going to Mpegs will only be limited by CD disk space and hard drive size to carry the files. Its a penalty full frame avi based people have to get around.

Hopefully LSX will be doing the batch into one file in the next release.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 06, 2000.

oops! forgot to mention that the later versions of some programs and capture boards have a 4G limit and you really need to check up on the specifications of any system to see what are its limitations.

For example my ADS Pyro firewire card has a 4G limitation with Ulead programs and a 2G limitation with the current adobe programs. You will soon know if you hit it, the capture, render or encode will just stop - bit late then though.

-- Ross McL (rmclennan@esc.net.au), March 06, 2000.