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Shooting 8K videos on the Galaxy S20 requires 600MB per minute

Shooting 8K videos on the Galaxy S20 requires 600MB per minute

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Get those microSD cards handy

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Photo by Vjeran Pavic / The Verge

8K footage recorded on the Samsung Galaxy S20 will take up around 600MB per minute, according to Samsung, meaning that storage could quickly become an issue if you want to record video at the highest-possible resolution. Samsung also told us that five minutes of 8K footage would take up around 3GB of space.

The amount of storage space you’ll need isn’t the only limitation that applies to recording 8K video on the phone. The maximum recording time is also capped at five minutes, according to SamMobile, and you can also only shoot video at 24fps, with no ability to record at higher frame rates like 60fps or even 30fps. There’s also no video stabilization available at 8K, the company says.

8K recording is limited to 24fps

Storage will be less of a concern if you opt for the highest-capacity Galaxy S20 Ultra. The handset is available with up to 512GB of internal memory and supports up to 1TB microSD cards, leaving you with a maximum total combined storage of 1.5TB. Not all of this will be available for media once you account for apps and the phone’s operating system, but it should be enough for a couple dozen hours of 8K footage.

Of course, Samsung argues that there are still some good reasons to want to film in 8K. The high resolution means that you can pull 33-megapixel stills directly out of a video, meaning it could be possible to create usable photographs from footage originally recorded as video. However, there are currently few places where you’ll be able to play back your 8K footage at its native resolution since 8K TVs are only just starting to emerge into the market.

The big question is how good Samsung’s camera sensors are at capturing 8K footage in the first place. For that, we’ll have to wait to spend some more time with the phones as part of our full review.

Update Febuary 12th, 11:26AM ET: Updated with additional information from Samsung.