Memory Cards. Recommendations and Suggestions.

[silversolver 849]

1 hour ago, david said:

You could try a different file allocation size for exFAT.  My guess is that fxtec didn't pay Microsoft for exFAT, so we won't be able to use it.  That's too bad.

You can try ext4, but even if it works, you'll have permission issues of apps accessing files they didn't create.

I guess we are stuck with FAT32 for Android, unless someone creates a custom kernel to get around some of these issues.

The problem is that we'll be limited to 4GB files for 4K video, which will limit us to about 12 minutes per clip.  However, and I just learned this, Android's video APIs don't support files larger than 4GB anyway.  They will auto-create a new file every time 4GB is reached.  Android 11 will fix this limitation, but unless we get support on the Pro1 for a filesystem that supports files larger than 4GB, we won't be able to take advantage of it.  I wonder if the software will be smart enough to still create a new clip when it gets to 4GB, or if it will simply error, either losing the video or stopping the recording at that point in time.

Most video recording programs are clever enough to work around the 4GB limitation, since it is very old yet still very common. As mentioned previously, if you don't need interoperability with Micro$oft's operating systems, EXT3/4 would be a good choice. Incidentally, software exists to make Micro$oft's OSes read EXT filesystems. I used it a long time ago and it worked fine. I can't remember to save my life why it mattered, but it did at the time.....I almost think I just wanted to know if it could be done. It could. ;)

[david 929]

41 minutes ago, silversolver said:

Most video recording programs are clever enough to work around the 4GB limitation, since it is very old yet still very common.

That is because the lower level APIs won't support files larger than 4GB.  When google fixes this (in Android 11), if the applications support the fix, then they'll need to be smart about filesystem limitations, which will still be present on any phones that don't support filesystems that allow for larger than 4GB files and present on any phones where the user has elected to use FAT32 for their card.

Quote

As mentioned previously, if you don't need interoperability with Micro$oft's operating systems, EXT3/4 would be a good choice.

What method do you propose to allow Pro1 phones on the stock android to use EXT3/4 for the external SD and get around the mounting and permission issues of those filesystems?

My understanding is that it depends on the OS, and that stock android doesn't support it for external SD cards.  Cyanogenmod/LineageOS does support it, which is why I can use it on my Relay 4G with Cyanogenmod 11.

Quote

Incidentally, software exists to make Micro$oft's OSes read EXT filesystems. I used it a long time ago and it worked fine. I can't remember to save my life why it mattered, but it did at the time.....I almost think I just wanted to know if it could be done. It could. 😉

Yes, but it is either a pain to use a specialized program to access it or requires installing a special driver and making sure it is running when you need to use it on all computers you need to use it.

I'm kind of keen on the btrfs filesystem, from what I've read about it over the years.  I haven't used it yet, but it seems like it has a lot of great features.  Hopefully that will make its way into standard android support at some point.  Google has been reported to be considering this for android.  Of course, supporting it for internal storage and supporting it for external storage are two different things, which is why the ext4 on external SD cards issues exist.

Until someone can show differently, we will be limited to around 12 minutes of 4K video on the Pro1 per file, on the external SD, due to the filesystem limitation and due to the Android video API limitation.  Android 11 will remove the latter limitation but not the former. 

This isn't horrible, since for most use cases, 12 minutes is a long time, but there are certainly cases where people need longer videos and would like them to be in one file.  I guess they'll have to wait for Android 11 an save videos to the internal storage if they want longer videos in a single file.

Edited January 18, 2020 by david

[Benni 183]

6 minutes ago, david said:

That is because the lower level APIs won't support files larger than 4GB.  When google fixes this (in Android 11), if the applications support the fix, then they'll need to be smart about filesystem limitations, which will still be present on any phones that don't support filesystems that allow for larger than 4GB files and present on any phones where the user has elected to use FAT32 for their card.

What method do you propose to allow Pro1 phones on the stock android to use EXT3/4 for the external SD and get around the mounting and permission issues of those filesystems?

My understanding is that it depends on the OS, and that stock android doesn't support it for external SD cards.  Cyanogenmod/LineageOS does support it, which is why I can use it on my Relay 4G with Cyanogenmod 11.

Until someone can show differently, we will be limited to around 12 minutes of 4K video on the Pro1 per file, on the external SD, due to the filesystem limitation and due to the Android video API limitation.  Android 11 will remove the latter limitation but not the former. 

This isn't horrible, since for most use cases, 12 minutes is a long time, but there are certainly cases where people need longer videos and would like them to be in one file.  I guess they'll have to wait for Android 11 an save videos to the internal storage if they want longer videos in a single file.

I've always used linage with a ext4 sdcard as external storage and never had permissions issues.
(I needed to set the correct owner (media_rw) of the root-fs though ).

Edited January 18, 2020 by kontakt

[david 929]

3 minutes ago, kontakt said:

I've always used linage with a ext4 sdcard as external storage and never had permissions issues.
(I needed to set the correct owner (media_rw) of the root-fs though ).

Yes, the key there is that you are using LineageOS.  I don't know of a way to do it with stock android.  Someone would need to compile a custom kernel for us, I believe.

[Rob. S. 1,663]

19 hours ago, david said:

This is the exact reason why I will be formatting my card for exFAT, most likely.  If I do want to take the card out and put it in my Windows computer, then I want to be able to read it. 

1 hour ago, silversolver said:

Incidentally, software exists to make Micro$oft's OSes read EXT filesystems.

Indeed; it's just a matter of installing it (and buying it; it is $19.95): https://www.paragon-software.com/home/linuxfs-windows/#overview – supports ext2/3/4 with read/write access and btrfs and xfs with read access.

 

 

Edited January 18, 2020 by Rob. S.

[elvissteinjr 359]

Is the 12 minute limit in 4k a real world issue? Ignoring that the video quality ain't all that great to justify recording in 4k, if the next file is written without a hitch or interruption, stringing the files together without re-encoding on a PC is a pretty simple. Or keep some internal space free and record to there once it's supported in the future, I guess.

I won't believe if you're gonna tell me you want to juggle around these large recordings without any further processing done on them later on.

[david 929]

5 minutes ago, Rob. S. said:

Indeed; it's just a matter of installing it (and buying it; it is $19.95): https://www.paragon-software.com/home/linuxfs-windows/#overview – supports ext2/3/4 with read/write access and btrfs and xfs with read access.

 

 

Or free options:  https://www.howtogeek.com/112888/3-ways-to-access-your-linux-partitions-from-windows/

[david 929]

6 minutes ago, elvissteinjr said:

Is the 12 minute limit in 4k a real world issue? Ignoring that the video quality ain't all that great to justify recording in 4k, if the next file is written without a hitch or interruption, stringing the files together without re-encoding on a PC is a pretty simple.

It may not be difficult, but it is just an extra pain to have to keep track of which files need to be concatenated and use specialized software.  And it depends on the user.  Some users aren't going to mess around with such things.

6 minutes ago, elvissteinjr said:

Or keep some internal space free and record to there once it's supported in the future, I guess.

Yes, that's an alternative option for people, as stated previously.

6 minutes ago, elvissteinjr said:

I won't believe if you're gonna tell me you want to juggle around these large recordings without any further processing done on them later on.

I guess that's your choice. LOL :-)

[david 929]

To be clear on this filesystem limitation...  I would like to be able to format for exFAT so that I have maximum portability, not just for the rare case where I'll take the card out and put it in an SD card reader on my PC (because I won't do that often at all), but more for the case where something goes wrong and I need to use specialized recovery software to get the data off the card.  Some of those tools require booting into their own OS, and the farther you get from standard Windows filesystems, the greater chance there is that they won't read the card (some may, some may not).

The other reason is so that video files don't get split up, but that is an issue until android 11 no matter what we do.  

I prefer to reduce variables when dealing with storage, because I've had too many situations where I needed to recover data.  Every variable here can make a difference in how easy it is to recover data or if it isn't even possible at all.

These are my personal needs and wants.  They aren't typical, because *most* people don't go through the hoops I've gone through to recover data in the past.  And most people, I'm guessing, aren't going to be opening that SIM/SD tray all the time anyway, so Windows interoperability probably doesn't concern most people.

I do think that the 12 minute limitation is unfortunate for android and will be unfortunate for the Pro1 once android 11 comes out.  It isn't critical, but it would be nice if it wasn't a limitation.

[VaZso 1,998]

5 minutes ago, david said:

It may not be difficult, but it is just an extra pain to have to keep track of which files need to be concatenated and use specialized software.  And it depends on the user.  Some users aren't going to mess around with such things.

Yes - I have recorded a relatively long video with my Moto G6 last year.
It can not record in 4k but somewhere around 2k - using OpenCamera.

I was surprised to see it clipped the video at 4 GB despite the exFAT which supports larger files, but now I know its reason (I didn't know also video API has such a limitation in Android).
Fortunately, it could fit in two files but I was not really happy when I saw that.
I don't remember what program I used to join them but I think ffmpeg solved the problem and video looked good.
...but the same video would maybe have 4 or 5 pieces which should be joined if it was recorded in 4k.

It is not very convenient anyway and solving it only in Android 11 is a bit... strange.

So if the same problem would exists when phones are going to be powerful enough to record 8k videos, then we are limited to around 5 minutes of recording per file - it seems they have decided to solve it just "in time"  (it is not a graceful laughing but a forced one)

[silversolver 849]

I am used to LineageOS (using it to post this) and as such am unused to some of the limitations in stock.

As for concatenating videos, AVIdemux is free, easy, and seamless. Open the first file, drop the others in afterward in order, then save them all in one file. I have done it many times. It is a useful tool for a lot of things, and I'm pretty sure it is also available for Linux. Just set everything to copy and the output has no quality loss and no issues.

[VaZso 1,998]

5 minutes ago, silversolver said:

It is a useful tool for a lot of things, and I'm pretty sure it is also available for Linux. Just set everything to copy and the output has no quality loss and no issues.

That is what can be done using ffmpeg at command line (also graphical fontend may exist)...
...but it would be good to not have such limitations...

[silversolver 849]

4 minutes ago, VaZso said:

That is what can be done using ffmpeg at command line (also graphical fontend may exist)...
...but it would be good to not have such limitations...

I'm pretty sure that AVIdemux is a graphical frontend for FFmpeg. "Normal people" need a GUI these days. Then there's me....I'm perfectly capable of using the command line, but too lazy. ;)

[MickH 211]

While we're on the subject of storage. This is something I bought a few years ago in a closing down sale for £5.

It's basically a portable drive that has a 64Gb SD Card inside and connects to supported devices via Wi-Fi. I now have it connected to the Pro1 and was playing 1080p videos from it last night without any issues at all.

[david 929]

48 minutes ago, MickH said:

While we're on the subject of storage. This is something I bought a few years ago in a closing down sale for £5.

It's basically a portable drive that has a 64Gb SD Card inside and connects to supported devices via Wi-Fi. I now have it connected to the Pro1 and was playing 1080p videos from it last night without any issues at all.

Hey, now that's an interesting concept.  Does it use its own protocols/apps to connect?  Does it use wifi-direct or is it talking to the Pro1 through your wifi network?  Can you transfer files between it and the Pro1 over wifi?

[david 929]

I looked online and could only find a 32 GB version.  I also found some wireless SSD drives, but they were much more expensive.  Cool gadgets.

[MickH 211]

10 hours ago, david said:

I looked online and could only find a 32 GB version.  I also found some wireless SSD drives, but they were much more expensive.  Cool gadgets.

Yeah, my mistake. It's 32Gb. There's a PQI app to allow access via a built in file browser, doesn't need to go through a Wi-Fi network, which makes it ideal for on the move. Transferring files is also possible through the app.

Edited January 19, 2020 by MickH

[kashif 350]

ive gor samsung evo 512 gb.

pretty good speed with read and write.

and 512gb is pretty decent memory

[david 929]

2 hours ago, kashif said:

ive gor samsung evo 512 gb.

Did you have to format it as FAT32 in the phone?

[kashif 350]

16 hours ago, david said:

Did you have to format it as FAT32 in the phone?

Yes i had to

[EskeRahn 5,464]

I think I remember from another forum, that some of these formats requires licensing, that might be the reason they go for fat32 to assure the widest possibility for reading on 'any' device, and could require them to buy a licence to use on the Pro1

Found this googling (My bolding)

 

Quote

 

Currently, Microsoft holds the US Patent 8321439 for Quick File Name Lookup using Name hash. It is a method which escalates file search speed. They’ve not released a complete specification set for the exFAT file system, for which the vendors have to obtain a restricted license from Microsoft.

Most of the countries recognize the US Patent Law and thus, any implementation of the exFAT file system is not possible for the vendors which intend it to be a part of an open-source operating system or commercial software.

 

 

[_DW_ 628]

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat-linux-kernel/

[EskeRahn 5,464]

14 minutes ago, _DW_ said:

https://cloudblogs.microsoft.com/opensource/2019/08/28/exfat-linux-kernel/

Ah!! August 28th  2019. That is very recent, so most likely not in Android Pie natively. At best in an update we have not got yet. But with a little luck it is in Q. Anyone knows?

[_DW_ 628]

1 hour ago, EskeRahn said:

Ah!! August 28th  2019. That is very recent, so most likely not in Android Pie natively. At best in an update we have not got yet. But with a little luck it is in Q. Anyone knows?

Just needs to get into main linux kernel first.

[_DW_ 628]

Didn't have time to check earlier looks like already done https://itsfoss.com/linux-kernel-5-4/