Calculator guide · Data

Data & Storage

Data & Storage links data rate, running time and file size: how much storage a shoot needs, how long a drive or card lasts, or what bitrate fits a file into a size limit. It replaces Time to Data, Data to Time and Target Bitrate, which are now its three modes.

This help describes CineMath 1.3, the next update. Until it reaches the App Store, the version there is 1.2.1, and some screens, calculators and shortcuts differ. What changes in 1.3

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What you enter

Pick what to solve for with Solve For: Storage (the default), Runtime or Bitrate. The other two become the inputs.

Input	Used in	What it is
Frame Rate	All modes	Defaults to 23.976 fps. It sets how many frames the runtime timecode holds, and feeds the generic codec estimates.
Data Rate	Storage, Runtime	In Kbps, Mbps or Gbps. Starts at 0: type a rate, use Codec Quick Preset, or choose a preset in the Data Rate sheet (see below).
Runtime	Storage, Bitrate	Timecode, HH:MM:SS:FF.
Storage Size	Runtime, Bitrate	In KB, MB, GB (the default) or TB.
Audio Streams	Bitrate	Off by default. Turn it on to set aside room for audio (PCM 16-bit or 24-bit at 48 kHz, 768 or 1,152 kbps a channel, or AAC at 128 kbps a channel; mono to 16 channels) and get the video bitrate that is left.

Where the data rate comes from

Manual: type the rate from the camera manual, the codec maker or your encoder. This is the most accurate.
Codec Quick Preset: a list of fixed rates, for example ProRes 422 HQ 220 Mbps, ProRes 422 HQ 4K 880, DNxHR HQ 880, ARRIRAW 4K 2880, BRAW Q5 4K 400 and H.264 4K 150. They do not change with the resolution or frame rate you are using; ProRes 422 HQ 220 is Apple’s figure for 1080 at 29.97.
Generic preset (Data Rate sheet): pick a video codec, resolution, audio codec and channels, and the app estimates the rate. Results are marked “Estimated based on codec preset”.
Camera preset (CineMath Professional): the rate for a camera, format and recording mode from the Camera Database.

The generic estimate scales a per-megapixel rate by resolution and frame rate, and adds the audio. It can be well off the maker’s published figures. For ProRes 422 HQ at UHD 23.976 it gives about 447 Mbps of video, where Apple’s ProRes white paper lists about 707 Mb/s at UHD 24p. Use it for a first guess, and a manual rate when the number decides a purchase.

What you get

Storage: the total size (“99.1 GB”), and the same rate per minute, per hour and per 10-hour shoot day. Warnings when one runtime or one shoot day is over 2 TB.
Runtime: how long the storage lasts, to the second (“2 Hours, 31 Minutes, 31 Seconds”), and how long at half and double the rate.
Bitrate: the rate that fits the size, split into video and audio when Audio Streams is on, and the closest quick-preset codec if one is within 15%.

Formula

Size (bytes) = rate (bits/s) × seconds ÷ 8 Seconds = size × 8 ÷ rate Rate = size × 8 ÷ seconds

All units are decimal: 1 GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes and 1 Mbps is 1,000,000 bits per second. No container or file-system overhead is added.

Worked examples

Mode	Inputs	Result
Storage	01:00:00:00 at 23.976, 220 Mbps (ProRes 422 HQ quick preset)	99.1 GB (1.65 GB a minute, 0.99 TB a 10-hour day)
Storage	01:00:00:00 at 23.976, 880 Mbps (ProRes 422 HQ 4K quick preset)	396.4 GB
Runtime	1 TB at 880 Mbps	2 Hours, 31 Minutes, 31 Seconds
Bitrate	4 GB in 01:00:00:00 at 23.976	8.88 Mbps (6.58 video + 2.30 audio with stereo PCM 24-bit, 48 kHz, on)

One hour of 23.976 timecode is 3,603.6 real seconds, so it holds a little more than a clock hour of data. That is why the first row is 99.1 GB, not 99.0.

Step by step: how long a 1 TB drive lasts at 880 Mbps

Open Data & Storage and set Solve For to Runtime.
Data Rate: tap Codec Quick Preset and choose ProRes 422 HQ 4K (880 Mbps), or type 880 Mbps.
Storage Size: 1 TB.
The result is 2 hours, 31 minutes, 31 seconds of recording. Leave room for the drive’s formatted size, which is a little under its label.

Gotchas

Mbps (megabits) and MB/s (megabytes) differ by eight. Camera manuals often give MB/s: 110 MB/s is 880 Mbps.
Decimal against binary: a “1 TB” drive is 1,000 GB here and in Finder, but about 931 GB in tools that use binary units.
Plan for copies. A shoot day of 0.99 TB with two backups needs about 3 TB of drives.
Variable-bitrate codecs such as H.264, H.265 and compressed RAW vary with the picture. Treat their rates as averages.

To find how long the files take to send, use Upload Time.