Terms of Use

The whole thing in one paragraph

Axen Works is free to use for anything, including paid work. Every result it gives you is a well sourced estimate rather than a guarantee, so leave a margin and never plan for a card to be exactly full. The words and the code are mine, the published data rates belong to the manufacturers who published them, and quoting a figure with a link back needs no permission. If something here is wrong, tell me and I will fix it. The rest of this page is the same statement with the corners filled in.

Using this site

You can use these calculators for personal work, for a class, for a budget, for a client job, and for commercial production. There is no account to open, no licence to sign, no fee, and no attribution requirement when you simply use a result. Take the number to your producer and get on with the day.

By using the site you accept the terms on this page. If you do not accept them, the honest remedy is not to use it, which costs you nothing since nothing here is behind a login.

Every result is an estimate

This is the clause that matters and it is not buried at the bottom. These calculators convert published data rates into file sizes and recording times with exact arithmetic. The arithmetic is exact. The inputs are not always, for reasons that come from how cameras and file systems really behave.

• Most cameras write variable bitrate, so a real file moves with what is in front of the lens. Two takes of the same length are rarely the same size.
• Manufacturers publish target rates and estimated times, and say so themselves in their own documents.
• File systems, sidecar files, proxies and the camera's own behaviour take space that no clean formula accounts for.
• A recorder stops before the last byte, because it needs room to close the file and write its index.

So treat every result here as a good estimate from a named source, and leave yourself room. Do not make this site the only basis for a decision you cannot reverse, such as how much media to buy for a shoot that cannot be repeated. Where a figure is derived rather than quoted, the page it appears on says so, and the sources page holds the full trail.

No warranty

The site is provided as it is, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranty of accuracy, fitness for a particular purpose or uninterrupted availability. I make a serious effort to be accurate, I check every published figure by hand against the manufacturer document, and the arithmetic is covered by an automated test suite. None of that adds up to a promise, and I am not going to pretend that it does.

Limits of my responsibility

To the extent the law allows, I am not liable for lost footage, a card that ran out early, a drive that turned out too small, a purchase you regret, a delivery that missed a platform limit, or any other loss, direct or indirect, arising from the use of this site or from anything you found on it. The decision on the shoot is yours, made with your own eyes on your own kit.

This is a set of technical calculators, not professional advice. It does not replace testing your own camera in your own shooting mode, which the main calculator shows you how to do in about twenty seconds.

Fair use of the site itself

There is not much to abuse here, since everything runs in your browser, but for completeness: do not attempt to break, overload or interfere with the site or its hosting, do not scrape it in bulk to rebuild the tables somewhere else, and do not present these calculators as your own product or imply that I endorse yours.

What belongs to whom

The text on this site, the design, the calculators and the code behind them are mine, and they are protected by copyright.

The underlying figures are a different matter and it is worth being precise about it. A published data rate is a fact about a codec, and facts belong to nobody. What belongs to Apple, to Blackmagic Design, to GoPro and to the platforms is their documentation, their tables and their presentation of those facts. This site reads their published documents, cites them by name and links to them, which is what citation is for.

What you can do without asking: quote a figure or a result in an article, a post, a lesson or a client email, with a link back to the page it came from. Take a screenshot for a deck or a class. Link to any page here from anywhere.

What needs a conversation first: republishing whole pages, mirroring the site, copying the data tables in bulk into another tool, or embedding a calculator inside another product. Write to me. I am not difficult about it, but I would like to be asked, and I would like to know where the numbers are going so I can tell you when they change.

Trademarks

Apple, ProRes and Final Cut Pro are trademarks of Apple Inc. Blackmagic Design, Blackmagic RAW and DaVinci Resolve are trademarks of Blackmagic Design Pty Ltd. GoPro and HERO are trademarks of GoPro, Inc. YouTube and Google are trademarks of Google LLC. Vimeo and Instagram are trademarks of their respective owners. Axen Works is independent and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. Their names appear here because their published documentation is cited by name, which is the honest way to use a source.

Advertising and links out

This site is intended to be funded by advertising, and advertising was not yet live on the date at the top of this page. When ads appear they will be visibly separated from the content, and no advertiser gets to influence a figure, a recommendation or the order of anything on this site. An advertisement is not an endorsement, and neither is a link. What happens to cookies when advertising arrives is set out on the privacy page.

Links to manufacturer and platform documents are here so you can check my work. Those sites are run by other people under their own terms.

Corrections and changes to the site

Where a figure comes from a manufacturer or platform publication, that publication is the authority and this site is a careful reader of it. Publications change, codecs are updated and cameras are replaced. If you find a discrepancy, write to ulisses@openyourais.com with the source and I will correct the page and note what changed.

Pages, tools and results can change or be removed at any time as the underlying documentation changes. Nothing here is a permanent record, and no availability is promised.

Changes to these terms

If these terms change, the date at the top of this page changes with them. Continuing to use the site after that is how you accept the new version, which is the standard arrangement everywhere and at least it is written here in a sentence you can actually read.

Which law applies

I live and work in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and this site is operated from there, so Brazilian law governs these terms and the courts of Sao Paulo are the ones with jurisdiction. If a court decides any part of this page is unenforceable, the rest of it stands.

Contact

Questions about these terms, or about reusing anything here, go to ulisses@openyourais.com. The contact page explains what reaches me fastest, and the about page explains who is answering.