What's the true reason?
The import taxes are higher on video cameras than still cameras, so they artificially limit the length of videos you can record to avoid being classified as a video camera.
> Video camera recorders are subject to import duty of 4.9% or 14%, still image cameras are duty free.
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-8-2016-00127...
(Update: included better link)
Seemed totally bizarre, until you learn that it was so they can be classified as "slippers" which had a much smaller import tax than sneakers.
It still astonishes me that a legal hack like that works.
https://www.gearpatrol.com/style/shoes-boots/a715423/convers...
It's the impetus behind the question "Is a hotdog a sandwich?" What does it mean to be a sandwich? What are the properties of sandwichness? When does something stop being a sandwich?
What's the line between pasta and bread? Bread and cake? Shoe and slipper? The fact that all fruits are vegetables, but not all vegetables are fruits, but it turns out most of them are, in fact, fruits, and half our fruits are actually nuts or some shit.
So to put an exemption on a "slipper", you have to rigidly define what a slipper is. Because "yeah, that's a slipper" doesn't pass muster. Because you and I can disagree on what a slipper is. On where the line between slipper and shoe is. But if we legally define a slipper as any article of clothing designed to be worn on the foot with a felted or cloth sole. Boom, we have something we can agree on. As long as the item meets all of the legal qualifications, it's legally a slipper. And we can fuck subjectivity right out the window.
But of course, where there are rules, there are games. And the goal of the game is to get as much as possible while giving up as little as possible.
https://www.businessinsider.com/heres-why-converse-sneakers-...
I didn't know the British used to be so cool.
I expect the answer is all of the above and more.
In practice, video is done by using the HDMI output of the camera which will spit out continous 4k output without the 30 min limit, and without all the issues of needing to flush this to CFe/SD/XQD cards. You then caputre it on either a laptop or stand alone video capture device which will have functionally limitless storage. The sensor and processing engine is still running the whole time though, which means the camera needs to be specced to handle this (and they are). The only limitation is that you can't record to the internal storage, and as explained that doesn't matter.
Either your thermal solution can remove the heat of your CPU going at full power, or it can't. And if it can't it'll hit the limits in 5 minutes not 30 minutes, unless it's a huge water-cooling system or something like that.
The main exception here is batteries - but lots of fancy cameras offer things like battery grips for people who want to shoot for hours on end.
Not even sure if the UK has changed this already.
Folks all over the world have to settle for an inferior product specifically because EU wanted a slightly juicier import tariff. It's cases like this I'm sympathetic to my more libertarian countrymen. Who genuinely thinks the consumer is better off because of these 'protections'?
Maybe they should read Hacker News.
If you're recording a live opera it's a problem but then you usually have much higher quality gear without the limitations of a DSLR.
I've made home sex tapes longer than 30 minutes, imagine stopping in the middle to start a new file on the camera! Or imagine someone filming the birth of their child and failing to capture it because the camera timed out at an inopportune moment.
No need to brag.
And say you use slow memory card in your otherwise capable camera... I have one here, which is allowing me to capture, depending on subject, 4-15 seconds of video. It just cant write stuff onto memory card fast enough and fills its memory buffer and then its done. With proper fast flash card, same camera runs up to 29:59 and with certain tweaks, until flash card is full.
Though I wonder who needs to record more than 30 minutes in one take? Seems like extremely niche scenario even with videocameras.
I remember Ukraine or Russia had for many years even crazier tax on cars which were improted partially disassembled and then assembled locally to avoid much higher import tax on completely assembled car, but can't find it now. Seems it was scratched after they joined WTO,m before there was like 30% import tax on cars.
"Fujifilm says the camera can shoot 6.2K/30 video for 90 minutes or 4K/60p for 60 minutes at 25°C (77°F); these numbers drop significantly at higher temperatures, and there's no option to add a fan to compensate."
Here's what the next more expensive, slightly bigger camera can do the Fujifilm X-h2, from Cameralabs.com
"Also inherited from the X-H2S is unlimited internal recording, sailing past the previous half hour limit and also without overheating issues in my tests. I made five separate recordings, each starting with a full battery, and was able to record between 100 and 120 minutes in any format from 1080 to 8k before the battery expired. In each case at the end of the recording, the camera had become very warm behind the screen, but showed no warning of overheating. Battery power was the limiting factor in these tests.
All my tests were made at room temperature in the UK, but if you’re filming under hotter conditions and experiencing overheating, you can extend your recording times by fitting an optional fan accessory. As seen here on the S version, this simply screws into the back of the body when the screen’s folded out – not particularly elegant, but it will extend your times."
It seems to me it's clearly an issue of heat management in a small form factor since an optional fan accessory extends the film length in the higher end camera.
A few years back I had a Sony DSC-HX90V (basically their best compact camera), purchased in Australia, that was capped at 20 minutes. (I discovered this by losing most of an hour-long session. I don’t believe this limitation was documented, as I did read its manual and would expect to have remembered that.)
I understand the Sony α6000 generation (mirrorless; α6000, α6300, α6500) had a mixture of limitations: in many situations, around a 20 minute cap due to file system or file format limits, thermal limits that would often shut it down well before that, and a hard limit of “approximately 29 minutes” for unstated reasons I will not speculate on.
The α6100 generation (α6100, α6400, α6600) lacks all these limitations. I purchased one in India. Its battery allows it to record for around 80 minutes, and with power via Micro-USB I’ve recorded for 100 minutes in an ambient temperature of over 40°C on multiple occasions, and five hours once for a test.
New cameras are overcoming this with fans. Look at the just realeased Sony fx30 or the Panasonic S5ii. Both have built in fans to aid in cooling getting them unlimited record times.
I shoot with a sigma FP that has no recording limit and no fan. It is designed as basically a giant heat sink. It also has some of the lowest amounts of noise of any camera.
I’m sure the eu thing comes into play in hitting that 30 minute mark but it’s probably a convenient choice of time limit when solving the heat buildup issue.
FWIW I’ve followed film cameras closely for years and have never heard of this EU law while all reviews etc talk about heat buildup because it is so detrimental to image quality.
