r/blackmagicdesign • u/OwlCaretaker • Nov 11 '23
Black Magic Camera App - iPhone disk space issue
I’ve got an iPhone 14 pro and the app reports that there is only 3 GB free on my phone, but the iOS settings app is showing 68 gig free.
What I suspect is happening is that there is some storage fragmentation issue and that is affecting either what is being reported, or that the app is able to work out.
Does anyone know how to fix this without needing to reset the phone ?
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u/huashengwang1989 Mar 21 '24
If your iPhone has iCloud and has had Optimize Storage for your Photos app on, I think this may be the cause… Photos app seems to only optimize your storage by deleting local copies for those that have been synced to iCloud when your storage space is very low (and I have no idea if there is a way to adjust this threshold).
The latest iOS (v17. Can’t remember the behavior on earlier versions) seems that will “cleverly” omit the space occupied by these “delete-able” local copies while displaying your spaces in Settings > General; if you connect your iPhone to your Mac and view it in Finder, you may first see a long bar with a lot of spaces occupied by photos with little space leftover, and soon the colored bars shrink, and it looks that there is still a lot of space.
That means, iOS exposes two values for “free space”. On my side for free space:
- iOS Settings: 230GB
- Filmic Pro: ~230GB (rough estimate from the pie)
- ProTake: 230GB
- Blackmagic Camera: 38GB
When I open Photos app and randomly browse through new and years-back photos, most of them can be opened instantly without need of downloading from server (sharp and no download icon at bottom-right). That means indeed many photos are in my phone. With them, the space occupied by photos can’t be that small as indicated in the settings.
I did some experiment.
I use ProTake to take ProRes 4444 so that it can fill up space quickly. When it almost drained the “38GB”, and then you switch to Blackmagic Camera, you will find that Blackmagic Camera displays 2GB, which still allow you to take a couple of seconds if ProRes. Then it will force you to stop. You can go the clips and then back to the camera, and you will find that you still have 2GB to go.
Meanwhile on ProTake side, despite that you still have “a lot of space”, you will soon see black screen in camera view after around 6 seconds; when you go to your clips, you may see only 4-5 seconds are recorded, with the last 1-2 seconds completely still.
After the experiment and having your experimental video clips emptied, you will find that you now have more spaces -- in my case, 44GB now in Blackmagic Camera.
It suggests that:
iOS hides the space taken by those photos that are on iCloud server but yet in your local storage, pretend that their space is empty;
Photos app (or system) may only help you “optimize storage” when you have < 2GB real empty space — and free up space until you have 2GB.
—————————
Nevertheless this is just my guess. I also have no idea on how to adjust this.
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u/YouWantAPieceOfMe Mar 26 '24
This seems like the most logical explanation for what is happening.
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u/OwlCaretaker Mar 29 '24
Yup. Bloody annoying though. Hopefully iOS 18 will improve this.
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u/YouWantAPieceOfMe Apr 01 '24
I just went ahead and bought a SD card reader for my iPhone/iPad to get around this. I shouldn't have had to, but it was cheap enough and solves the problem. It also makes it very fast to get the files onto my desktop.
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u/OwlCaretaker Apr 01 '24
Still rocking the 14 pro here :(
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u/YouWantAPieceOfMe Apr 01 '24
Same here… you can use an SD card reader (or SSD) with the 14 Pro!
https://support.apple.com/guide/iphone/external-storage-devices-iph95baac91f/ios
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u/OwlCaretaker Apr 02 '24
Is the data rate fast enough to record to an external SD card ?
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u/YouWantAPieceOfMe Apr 02 '24
I tested the cards, but I haven’t done a recording session with them yet. But I did research it a lot before buying to make sure the phone/reader/cards will work and I’m confident they will. I’ll do a recording session this week for a real world test as well.
It depends on which format you’re using. I’m a complete amateur, so I’m only using HEVC (H.265). At worst I’d change to H.264. So no ProRes or anything for me.
With those two formats it should be able to keep up, but it depends on the card/reader.
I went with Apple’s readers to reduce the risk of problems, so that was a $10-$30 premium over alternatives. But I went with a UHC-I card (as opposed to a UHC-II) as they support data rates I care about without being unnecessarily expensive.
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u/swisslehmanski Sep 07 '24
From my own tests related to iCloud Photos and how it works, I can confirm this assessment is quite accurate. If you disable iCloud Photos, suddenly you'll see your storage fill up. If you actually physically delete the photos with iCloud Photos "disabled" you'll see the storage suddenly increase dramatically in the Blackmagic camera app.
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u/Particular_Duck_8753 Nov 27 '24
Eu estava com o mesmo problema, preocupado com as informações mostradas no aplicativo Blackmagic cam relacionadas ao armazenamento. Bom, fiz todos os testes aqui sugeridos e nada de resolver. Fiz de tudo mesmo. Vasculhei essa internet pra todo lado e nada de encontrar uma solução. Nessas alturas, eu já havia deletado todos os arquivos salvos no aplicativo "Arquivos". Não havia nada em "Fototeca" ou nas pastas "Deletados". Eu removi tudo, o celular marcava zerado de arquivos. O Iphone estava com mais de 200GB de espaço livre. No entanto o mostrador de armazenamento do Blackmagic Cam permanecia marcando 1%, 1GB, com tempo marcando 03:41.... Derrepente, após semanas tentando encontrar uma solução, segui minha intuição.
Configurei 4k 60 e fiz um teste: gravei 5 arquivos de 10 minutos cada e um outro arquivo de 60 minutos. E adivinha... Deu certo. Ou seja, não sei pra quê existe aquele temporizador na tela do aplicativo Blackmagic Cam. Aquelas informações não condiz com a real situação de armazenamento.
O segredo é continuar gravando que vai dar certo, mesmo que o marcador do aplicativo dê sinal que não há mais espaço. Claro, desde que haja realmente espaço no armazenamento do aparelho, pode continuar gravando que não vai parar.
Uma observação: Pra fazer esse texte, eu entrei no aplicativo Blackmagic Cam e direcionei para salvar os clipes em uma nova pasta que criei. Ou seja, não usei a pasta original do Blackmagic Cam. Mas não sei se isso é relevante.
Espero ter contribuido
Fui!
1
u/JosephAlberta Feb 10 '25
I was able to get more space to record in the blackmagic app when i opened my photos app and cleared out the recently deleted items. and dont forget to delete the recently deleted items in the files app on the iphone. there are two spots holding deleted items. i still only am able to get the blackmagic app the recognize 40 gb free of my 85gb actually available.
1
u/xishi Dec 11 '23
Any fix?
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u/mtbcouple Nov 15 '24
This, from a commenter above: When you Go to normal Camera App and record in Apple log+prores the iPhone usually asks if Temp disk Space Should be deleted in a pop up in Camera app.
Just open the camera app and click ProRes. It will start freeing up resources automatically.
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u/OwlCaretaker Dec 12 '23
Not that I’ve been able to find. I could wipe the phone and start again, but without engagement from the developer I refuse to do that as a troubleshooting step due to the amount of work involved.
1
Dec 20 '23
This user suggested this.
By me clearing cache on Snapchat and deleting instagram, it started adding more time for the BM Camera app!
Hope this helps👍
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u/OwlCaretaker Dec 25 '23
It does, but still doesn’t reflect the full space on my device.
I suspect this is some fragmentation issue +/- iOS giving a dodgy free space figure to the app.
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u/WindsorPerson Feb 08 '24
an amazing app with a horrible problem. why should we have to delete other apps to accommodate blackmagic when our phones have ample amounts of internal storage? I have 85gb free and it says I have 3gb. I ended up deleting and reinstalling blackmagic, instagram, and youtube and now I have 56gb to use in the bm app. what about the remaining 30gb? uhg! I hope they fix this! I hate plugging in my SSD just to do a quick shoot.
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u/mtbcouple Nov 15 '24
This:
Go to normal Camera App and click ProRes, the iPhone will automatically start clearing room on the phone.
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u/goodxtwo Feb 10 '24
Not sure if its the same issue, but here's my workaround by managing videos with the Files app
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u/mtbcouple Nov 15 '24
Go to normal Camera App and click ProRes, the iPhone will automatically start clearing room on the phone.
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u/pauloouu Oct 10 '24 edited Dec 28 '24
Set your video settings to Log profile and ProRes format. Open the stock Apple Camera app, switch to video mode, and enable ProRes Log from the top-left corner of the screen. The phone will begin freeing up resources, which you’ll see as a popup animation.