With the increasing storage capacity of smartphones, the video recording function of cameras is becoming more powerful. As a result, consumers’ requirements for storage space of mobile phones are becoming higher. According to media reports, Google will likely expunge the 4GB file size limit in the latest Android 11 system. This means that Android devices will be able to take a single recording file larger than 4GB.
In 2014, Google set a limit of 4GB for MediaMuxer and MPEG4Writer in Android for syndicating videos and assisting storage as MP4 files. At that time SD cards were still popular and most mobile phones did not support 4K video recording. If the video exceeds 4GB, it will be split into multiple files. Of course, if you do not check the video file, you will not notice it. Splitting the video file into multiple files is not conducive to processing and uploading of the video.
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Actually, the maximum file size varies depending on the manufacturer. A recording with the Google Pixel 4 4K video was split up into a maximum of 3.7GB files. Also, a 4K recording with the Xiaomi Mi 9SE only accepted 2.53GB before the split.
With the gradual elimination of SD cards and the preponderance of 4K recording, a change is needed. At 4K video recording can reach 4GB in just ten minutes. Therefore, removing the 4GB limit on a single file has become an issue that consumers can’t wait to solve.
In recent years, developers have been looking for a way to record video files larger than 4GB. This feature will most likely come with the latest Android 11. According to a new AOSP document, Google is updating Android’s media class to remove the 32-bit file size limit. Specifically, Android will now “use [a] 64-bit offsets in mpeg4writer”, which allows Android to “combine/mix files larger than 4GB in size”.
During the test, Google successfully composed a file with a size of about 32GB. In another test, it was even possible to fill the entire storage capacity of the phone with a single video recording. According to reports, Google will include this feature in Android 11 beta in March 2020. The stable version of this system should arrive in August 2020.