FDR-AX700 600 Scene Limit

[glennc]

I recently bought a FDR-AX700 and have used it on two trips.

Very impressed with the quality and usability of the camera apart from one serious and annoying flaw.

There is a limit of 600 "scenes" that you can record in XAVC S format on a memory card.

I had two 256Gb cards in the camera and was writing to both concurrently so that if there was a problem with one card I would be covered.

Whilst doing my recordings I kept an eye on how much space I had left on the card and it was showing I was using about half the memory.

I suddenly got a message saying that I had run our of space.

At the time; I thought I there was a fault and it was only when I got home and I investigated further that I discovered a statement in the online manual which says:

"You can record movies of a maximum of 600 scenes in XAVC S format or 3,999 scenes in AVCHD format. And you can record a maximum of 40,000 photos."

See https://helpguide.sony.net/cam/1710/v1/en/contents/TP0001389310.html 

I don't know why there is a restriction like this but it seems ridiculous that the camera will accept 256Gb cards which won't ever be filled up.

I suppose the restriction has to be lived with and I'd have been better having 128Gb cards instead.

What is even more annoying though is that there doesn't seem to be an easy way to find out how many "scenes" have been recorded.

You can easily see how much battery power and space is left but I don't know how to see how many "scenes" are left.

It does seem ridiculous that you could take for example 600 5 minutes scenes but 601 20 second scenes would run out of space.

I would therefore like to know if there is any way round this restriction or how to quickly check how many scenes are used.