For a long time Android has had an upper limit of 4GB set upon its created video files. Ever since 2014 Android has had this limitation — mostly due to the limited storage available on phones back then (even though SD cards were common). SD cards formatted with FAT32 were unable to support files this large anyway.
Now at the end of 2019 Android phones can now record in 4K and in the case of the Pixel 4, reach that 4GB limit in just 12 minutes — can’t wait for 8K recording to arrive. According to a new commit to the AOSP gerrit Google is removing the 32-bit file size limitation and will now “use [a] 64bit offset in mpeg4writer”.
Google has tested this commit out and managed to fill up an entire storage capacity of a phone with a single recording. The possible file size with the new process is ridiculously large and as such Google is expected to limit the MediaRecorder API or enforce OEMs to limit their camera apps to support a smaller file size.
While the commit is yet to be merged into the AOSP but it is expected to arrive in Android 11 next year — possibly even the beta when it arrives in March.
Having come across this 4GB limit a few times it is good to see Google finally looking to increase the file size limit — just because they have limited storage on their phones it does not mean everyone does. Bring on 8K recording and large file sizes.
