GoPro Video Size Calculator: How Much Footage Your GoPro Can Record in Different Settings

The GoPro video size has everything to do with the choice on what capacity of microSD card you need to buy. It determines how many hours of footage your GoPro can record in different settings. On the other hand, it matters whether you need lower the video recording setting to meet a tradeoff between quality and file size or not. Thus before recording, you definitely need to compute the GoPro video size based on your favorite video recording preferences. GoPro video size calculator certainly comes the best tool to figure out the GoPro Hero 8/7/6/5 recording time per GB in different settings.

• Part 1: Calculate the Size of GoPro Video
• Part 2: How to Compress the Large GoPro Video Size
• Part 3: What Factors Matter for GoPro Video Size
• Part 4: GoPro Hero6 Black Recording Time in Different Settings

Part 1: Calculate Your GoPro Video Size

Calculating the size of video is not something at a calculus level nor too advance. All the mechanisms behind are simple base calculations. Once you know the video length and bit rate, you're able to figure out the final size of your GoPro video. The formula comes as follows:

Video Size = Length (s) × bitrate (kbps)/8

For example, I set my GoPro HERO 6 Black video recording mode at 4K resolution, 60FPS frame rate, 66Mbps per second (8.25MB/s). If I record a minute of 4K video at such settings, I will get 60s × 66000 kbps/8=495000KB, namely 495MB, or 0.495GB. That is to say, according to this 4K video size calculator, 1GB of space allows you to record 2 minutes and 1 second of video in 4K 60FPS on GoPro HERO6 Black.

Part 2: GoPro Video Too Large for Sharing/Storage? Shrink the File Size!

What if you'd like to record a 4K 60FPS video of 10 minutes or an hour? Your video will be extremely huge in size. Yet that's not the point. You don't have to lower the GoPro recording settings to make a compromise of video quality owing to the size limit. Just shoot 4K, 2.7K, 1080p/720p videos at the best setting for GoPro. If the final video is oversized, you can compress the GoPro video with VideoProc without quality loss.

VideoProc is an excellent video compressor, allowing you to resize GoPro 4K/HD videos in various ways without sacrificing output quality. You're able to re-encode video to a codec or format with higher compression algorithm, adjust parameters like resolution, bitrate, frame rate etc., trim the video length or crop the frame size of the video. With all these ways applied, you video can be reduced at 90% without visually quality loss.

How to Reduce GoPro Video File Size with VideoProc

Free download VideoProc of Windows version or Mac version of your choice, depending on your platform. It's available on Windows 10/8/7 and Mac OS X 10.6 or above. Then install and launch it on your computer.

Step 2: You're able to adopt a single or any combination of below ways to resize video:

Option 1: Convert H.264 MP4 to HEVC. Select HEVC MP4, or other smaller sized format from formats menu at the bottom of the interface.

Option 2: Tweak audio video parameters. Double-click your selected format or click gear-shaped "Codec OPT" button to access to an interface, where you can lower GoPro video resolution from 4K/2.7K to 1080p or 720p HD, change 240/120/60 fps frame rate to lower 30/24fps, drop the bitrate, turn aspect ratio from 4:3 to 16:9, or adjust audio etc.

Option 3: Cut out the unwanted clips. Tap "Cut" icon under the video info, drop the green knob to locate the start and end time of your clip, then click the orange "Cut" icon to trim the length of video. You can repeat this operation to pick out other clips in this video. Click "Done" button after you've done.

Option 4: Crop GoPro video frame size. Click "Crop" icon under the video info, and tick the box of "Enable Crop". Then you can crop the video frame size or customize aspect ratio by dragging and zooming in/out the dashed rectangle on the image. Afterwards, click "Done" button.

Option 5: Split GoPro video into fragments. At the bottom panel, tap "Toolbox", select "Split" and double-click it to determine how many segments you'd like to split your GoPro video to, or how many seconds to split for every segment.

Part 3: What Factors Matter for GoPro Video Size?

According to the GoPro video size calculating above, you can find that bitrate and video length matter most for the file size, actually the bitrate is closely related to the resolution and frame rate. The higher resolutions and frame rates give you a big larger videos, and take more space on your memory cards. Besides, the codec, FOV and Protune settings also make a difference of the file size. Here is how such factors determine GoPro video size.

● Codec: H.265 vs AVC, H.265 naturally has a higher compression algorithm, which promises a 50% storage reduction by encoding video at the lowest possible bit rate while maintaining a high image quality level.

● Resolution: GoPro enables you to record at 4K, 2.7K, 1080p, 720p and some other resolutions. The higher the resolution is, the larger video size will be.

● FOV: FOV is short for Field of View. There are three options of FOV for GoPro Hero 5/6/7/8: Linear(90-degree), Wide(120-degree) and SuperView(170-degree). SuperView will shoot more contents, leading to a larger size comparing to Linear and Wide. Learn more about best GoPro FOV settings for various activities >>

● Frame Rate: A frame rate in video is the number of separate frames that are introduced to the viewer per second. It's close related to video resolution.

● Protune: Protune is a set of features that enhance your GoPro video quality through capturing more data. Footage shot in Protune will generate larger files than what is shot in the default GoPro settings, due to turning up the bit-rate. You may also be interested in best Protune setting on GoPro.

Part 4: Best GoPro Video Settings & Recording Time in Each Video Setting

You see, the GoPro video file size would vary according to GoPro video setting used, naturally leading to differences of recording time on a SD card of certain capacity. To have an overview comparison of GoPro recording time, we list the recommend GoPro Hero 8/7/6/5 settings for your activities with recording time in each setting.

Recording Time of the Recommended HERO6 Black Settings for Your Activities

* FOV = Field of View setting; POV = Point of View shot

* Here are the average recording storage times for HERO6 cameras with a 64GB SD card. If you're using a 32 GB SD card, these average record times would be half as large, while twice as large for a 128 GB SD card.

What if you're using other modules of GoPro cameras, such as GoPro HERO 5 or GoPro HERO 7? Actually, the video file size calculator goes the same for calculating GoPro HERO 7/5 Black recording times as long as you know the bit rate of each video setting. For example, as the GoPro official site said, the max bitrate of HERO7 Black is 78Mbps/s on 4K with protune is on, while HERO5 Black can record up to 60Mbps per second. Thus, if you set your GoPro camera to record videos at the maximum bitrate on a 64GB SD card, the GoPro recording time maximumly goes to:
GoPro HERO5 Black: 60s × 60000 kbps/8=450000KB, namely 450MB, about 2 hours 21 minutes and 52 seconds maximumly on a 64GB SD card.
GoPro HERO7 Black: 60s × 78000 kbps/8=585000KB, namely 585MB, about 1 hour 48 minutes and 48 seconds maximumly on a 64GB SD card.

Check more on GoPro Hero 4/5/6/7 Recording Time in Each Video Editing >>