How much storage does an hour of footage actually eat? This page is the answer, for every codec you’re likely to touch, precomputed in GB per hour so nobody has to do bitrate algebra at 11pm before a shoot. If you ingest, shoot, or budget storage on the regular, bookmark this one. Cmd+D on a Mac, Ctrl+D on a PC. You know the drill.
Every number below comes from the primary source: Apple’s ProRes white paper, Avid’s DNx bandwidth specs, Blackmagic’s published camera data rates, RED’s operation guides, Sony and Canon’s own spec sheets, and YouTube’s official upload recommendations. No blog-post telephone. Figures are decimal GB (the way drives are marketed), and video numbers exclude audio, which adds about 1GB per hour per stereo pair… a rounding error next to the picture.
The formula (for everything not on this page)
GB per hour = Mbps × 0.45. That’s it. A 220 Mbps codec is 99 GB per hour, and Apple’s own tables agree to the decimal. (The exact version: Mbps ÷ 8 × 3,600 seconds ÷ 1,000. It works out to × 0.45.) When a spec sheet gives MB/s instead, GB per hour = MB/s × 3.6. And data rate scales linearly with frame rate: 23.98 fps is 0.8× the 29.97 number, 50p is 2× the 25p number, 59.94p is 2× the 29.97 number. Those three rules unlock every table below for whatever frame rate you shoot.
The numbers you’ll actually use
Most days you need five numbers, not fifty. Here’s the shortlist; the full tables cover the rest.
| Codec | Flavor | GB per hour | 1TB holds about |
|---|---|---|---|
| H.264/H.265 camera 4K (100-200 Mbps) | Mirrorless Long GOP | 45-90 GB | 11-22 hrs |
| Sony XAVC S-I 4K 24p | All-intra acquisition | 108 GB | 9 hrs |
| ProRes 422 HQ, UHD 23.98 | The edit/master standard | 318 GB | 3 hrs |
| Blackmagic RAW 6K 5:1, 30fps | Compressed RAW | 698 GB | 1.4 hrs |
| REDCODE MQ, 8K | Cinema RAW (ceiling) | ~1,073 GB | <1 hr |
Apple ProRes
Apple publishes exact targets in the ProRes white paper; these are their numbers. ProRes is variable bitrate but capped at roughly 10% over target, so budgeting the target is safe.
ProRes at 1080p
| Codec | 29.97 fps | GB/hr | 25 fps | GB/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ProRes 422 Proxy | 45 Mbps | 20 | 38 Mbps | 17 |
| ProRes 422 LT | 102 Mbps | 46 | 85 Mbps | 38 |
| ProRes 422 | 147 Mbps | 66 | 122 Mbps | 55 |
| ProRes 422 HQ | 220 Mbps | 99 | 184 Mbps | 83 |
| ProRes 4444 | 330 Mbps | 148 | 275 Mbps | 124 |
| ProRes 4444 XQ | 495 Mbps | 223 | 413 Mbps | 186 |
ProRes at UHD (3840×2160)
| Codec | 29.97 fps | GB/hr | 25 fps | GB/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ProRes 422 Proxy | 182 Mbps | 82 | 151 Mbps | 68 |
| ProRes 422 LT | 410 Mbps | 185 | 342 Mbps | 154 |
| ProRes 422 | 589 Mbps | 265 | 492 Mbps | 221 |
| ProRes 422 HQ | 884 Mbps | 398 | 737 Mbps | 332 |
| ProRes 4444 | 1,326 Mbps | 597 | 1,106 Mbps | 498 |
| ProRes 4444 XQ | 1,989 Mbps | 895 | 1,659 Mbps | 746 |
Handy anchors: ProRes 422 HQ UHD at 23.98 fps is 707 Mbps (318 GB/hr), at 59.94 fps it’s 1,768 Mbps (795 GB/hr), and DCI 4K (4096-wide) 29.97 runs 943 Mbps (424 GB/hr). All straight off Apple’s table, all consistent with the scaling rules up top.
Avid DNxHR / DNxHD
Avid publishes these in MB/s; converted here. Avid has also retired the old suffixes, so DNxHD 36/145/220 are now just DNx LB/SQ/HQ at 1080p. Fun spec-sheet trivia: HQ and HQX have identical bandwidth (HQX buys you 12-bit, not more compression).
| Codec | Resolution | 29.97 fps | GB/hr | 25 fps | GB/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DNxHR LB | UHD | 171 Mbps | 77 | 143 Mbps | 64 |
| DNxHR SQ | UHD | 551 Mbps | 248 | 459 Mbps | 207 |
| DNxHR HQ / HQX | UHD | 833 Mbps | 375 | 695 Mbps | 313 |
| DNxHR 444 | UHD | 1,666 Mbps | 750 | 1,390 Mbps | 625 |
| DNx LB (was DNxHD 36) | 1080p | 43 Mbps | 19 | 34.5 Mbps (23.98) | 15.5 |
| DNx SQ (was DNxHD 145) | 1080p | 138 Mbps | 62 | n/a | n/a |
| DNx HQ (was DNxHD 220) | 1080p | 208 Mbps | 94 | n/a | n/a |
Camera H.264 / H.265 (XAVC, XF-AVC, LUMIX)
| Format | Resolution / rate | Bitrate | GB/hr |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sony XAVC S 4K (Long GOP) | UHD 24p | 100 Mbps | 45 |
| Sony XAVC S 4K (Long GOP, 10-bit) | UHD 30p | 140 Mbps | 63 |
| Sony XAVC S 4K (Long GOP) | UHD 60p | 200 Mbps | 90 |
| Sony XAVC S-I (All-Intra) | UHD 24p | 240 Mbps | 108 |
| Sony XAVC S-I (All-Intra) | UHD 30p | 300 Mbps | 135 |
| Sony XAVC S-I (All-Intra) | UHD 60p | 600 Mbps | 270 |
| Canon XF-AVC Intra (C70) | DCI 4K 30p | 410 Mbps | 185 |
| Canon XF-AVC Intra (C70) | DCI 4K 60p | 600 Mbps | 270 |
| Canon XF-AVC Long GOP (C70) | DCI 4K 30p | 260 Mbps | 117 |
| Panasonic LUMIX H.265 10-bit | UHD 30p | 200 Mbps | 90 |
| Panasonic LUMIX H.264 4:2:2 10-bit | UHD 30p | 150 Mbps | 67.5 |
RAW formats (BRAW, REDCODE, ProRes RAW)
Blackmagic publishes constant-bitrate rates per camera; these are the Pocket Cinema line’s numbers at 30fps. The compression-ratio menu is the single biggest storage decision on a Blackmagic camera… same hour of footage, 4× the bytes between 12:1 and 3:1.
| Format | Resolution | Rate (30 fps) | GB/hr |
|---|---|---|---|
| BRAW 3:1 | DCI 4K | 136 MB/s | 490 |
| BRAW 5:1 | DCI 4K | 82 MB/s | 295 |
| BRAW 8:1 | DCI 4K | 51 MB/s | 184 |
| BRAW 12:1 | DCI 4K | 35 MB/s | 126 |
| BRAW 3:1 | 6K (6144×3456) | 323 MB/s | 1,163 |
| BRAW 5:1 | 6K | 194 MB/s | 698 |
| BRAW 8:1 | 6K | 121 MB/s | 436 |
| BRAW 12:1 | 6K | 81 MB/s | 292 |
| REDCODE HQ (ceiling) | 8K 17:9 | 425 MB/s | ~1,530 |
| REDCODE MQ (ceiling) | 8K 17:9 | 298 MB/s | ~1,073 |
| REDCODE LQ (ceiling) | 8K 17:9 | 186 MB/s | ~670 |
| REDCODE MQ (ceiling) | 6K 17:9 | 168 MB/s | ~605 |
| ProRes RAW (estimate) | UHD 29.97 | ~736 Mbps | ~331 |
| ProRes RAW HQ (estimate) | UHD 29.97 | ~1,105 Mbps | ~497 |
Reading the asterisks: BRAW’s constant-quality modes (Q0 through Q5) and REDCODE vary with image content, so treat published rates as ceilings, not promises. ProRes RAW has no published targets at all; Apple only says it lands between ProRes 422 and 422 HQ (and the HQ flavor between 422 HQ and 4444), because it holds quality constant and lets the bitrate float. The estimates above are the midpoints of Apple’s own brackets, marked with a tilde for a reason. And if you’ve ever wondered why your old CinemaDNG masters are so huge: uncompressed 4K CinemaDNG runs north of a terabyte an hour, which is exactly why every camera maker replaced it with compressed RAW.
Delivery (YouTube’s recommended upload bitrates)
| Deliverable | SDR bitrate | GB/hr | HDR bitrate | GB/hr |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p 24-30fps | 8 Mbps | 3.6 | 10 Mbps | 4.5 |
| 1080p 48-60fps | 12 Mbps | 5.4 | 15 Mbps | 6.8 |
| 4K 24-30fps | 35-45 Mbps | 16-20 | 44-56 Mbps | 20-25 |
| 4K 48-60fps | 53-68 Mbps | 24-31 | 66-85 Mbps | 30-38 |
Audio (for completeness)
| Format | Bitrate | GB/hr |
|---|---|---|
| WAV 24-bit/48kHz mono | 1.152 Mbps | 0.52 |
| WAV 24-bit/48kHz stereo | 2.304 Mbps | 1.04 |
| WAV 32-bit float/48kHz stereo | 3.072 Mbps | 1.38 |
| WAV 24-bit/96kHz stereo | 4.608 Mbps | 2.07 |
Worked examples (the math in the wild)
The two-camera interview. A pair of FX3s in XAVC S-I 4K 24p (240 Mbps) rolling 90 minutes each: 2 × 1.5 hrs × 108 GB = 324 GB, before a single backup copy exists. Card math matters more than people think.
The proxy tax. A 1-hour UHD 29.97 project mastered in ProRes 422 HQ is 398 GB. Add ProRes Proxy proxies for the edit and you’re storing another 82 GB, about 21% more, for a dramatically lighter timeline. Worth it every time, but budget it.
The Blackmagic decision. One hour on a Pocket 6K at 30fps: 292 GB at 12:1, or 1,163 GB at 3:1. The menu setting you pick at 7am determines whether the shoot day fits on one SSD or four.
The doc that fills a NAS. A month of shooting at 400 GB/day, 20 shoot days: 8 TB of originals, 16 TB after the mandatory second copy. That’s half a 4-bay NAS from one project, which is why the storage conversation belongs in pre-production, not post.
The fine print (read once, then trust the tables)
These are decimal gigabytes, matching how drives are sold; your OS shows smaller GiB numbers for the same files, and no, the drive maker didn’t steal them. VBR codecs (ProRes, XAVC) treat the published figure as a target, and ProRes hard-caps about 10% above it, so the target is safe to budget. Add 1 to 2% for container overhead and embedded audio. And camera spec sheets change with firmware, so for a shoot that really matters, roll 60 seconds of your exact format and multiply. The sources for every table: Apple’s ProRes and ProRes RAW white papers, Avid’s DNxHR bandwidth KB, Blackmagic’s Pocket Cinema tech specs, RED’s V-RAPTOR operation guide, Sony’s a7S III/FX3 help guide, Canon’s C70 specs, and YouTube’s upload recommendations page.
Got your number? Here’s where it goes
Once you know a project’s terabytes, the rest of the site takes over: working drives for the edit are in the portable SSD guide, shared storage lives in the NAS guide and its hard drive companion, and what happens at wrap is covered in the archiving guide. Delivering something odd-shaped? The aspect ratio cheat sheet is this page’s sibling. Bookmark both and never do this math again.
