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Frame Rate & Raw Storage Estimator
Enter resolution, frame rate, duration and a codec/quality tier to estimate total frame count and expected storage size for production and archive planning, using rough real-world bitrate assumptions per tier.
Planning storage before you shoot or render
Before a shoot day or a big export batch, it helps to know roughly how much drive space you'll need. This estimator combines frame count (frame rate × duration) with a rough bitrate assumption for your chosen codec/quality tier, scaled by frame rate, to project total storage — useful for budgeting SD cards, SSDs or cloud storage ahead of time.
What this can't do
The bitrate assumptions per tier are broad, commonly cited ballparks, not measurements of any specific camera or encoder. Actual footage bitrate varies enormously with scene complexity, motion, lighting/noise, color depth and the specific codec implementation — a static interview and a fast action scene at the "same" quality tier can differ by 2× or more. Use this for rough planning headroom, then round up.
Frequently asked questions
Why does ProRes take up so much more space than H.264?
ProRes (and similar intermediate/raw-ish codecs) intentionally uses light compression to preserve maximum quality for editing and color grading, trading storage efficiency for editing flexibility and speed. H.264/HEVC use much heavier, more efficient compression meant for delivery, not editing.
Does higher frame rate always mean more storage?
Generally yes at a fixed quality tier — more frames per second means more visual information to encode per second of footage, so this tool scales its bitrate assumption up with frame rate. Real-world scaling isn't perfectly linear, but it's a reasonable planning approximation.
Should I plan storage using H.264 or HEVC assumptions?
Use whichever codec you'll actually record or export in — HEVC/H.265 targets noticeably smaller files than H.264 at similar visual quality, but takes more processing power to encode and isn't supported by every older device or editor.
How much extra headroom should I add to this estimate?
A common rule of thumb is to add 20–30% buffer on top of any storage estimate for unexpected extra takes, B-roll, backups and proxy/cache files generated during editing.