Calculate storage requirements for ARRI Alexa and LF sensor modes.
2.8K (2880 x 1620)
3.2K (3200 x 1800)
UHD (3840 x 2160)
4K 16:9 (4096 x 2304)
4.5K LF (4448 x 2502)
12-bit (Standard)
16-bit
Data Rate– MB/s
Total Storage– GB
Approximate recording time for a 1TB drive: –
Understanding 16:9 ARRIRAW Data Rates
ARRIRAW is the uncompressed, uncompromised format for ARRI cameras like the Alexa Mini, SXT, and LF. When shooting in a 16:9 aspect ratio, the camera utilizes a specific portion of the sensor, which dictates the resulting file size and data throughput.
How the Calculation Works
Unlike compressed codecs like ProRes, ARRIRAW data rates are strictly linear and based on resolution, bit depth, and frame rate. The formula used is:
Total Pixels: Width × Height
Bit Value: Total Pixels × Bit Depth
Per Frame: Bit Value / 8 (to convert bits to bytes)
Per Second: (Per Frame × FPS) / (1024 × 1024)
Key Factors for DITs and Producers
When planning a production, knowing your ARRIRAW data rate is critical for managing media offloads and storage budgets. For example, shooting UHD (3840×2160) at 24fps in 12-bit consumes approximately 285 MB per second, which totals over 1TB of data per hour of footage.
Example Data Rate Scenarios
Mode
FPS
GB per Hour
2.8K 16:9
24
~580 GB
UHD 16:9
24
~1,026 GB
4.5K LF 16:9
25
~1,440 GB
function calculateArriData() {
var sensorSelect = document.getElementById("sensorMode").value;
var fps = parseFloat(document.getElementById("frameRate").value);
var bitDepth = parseInt(document.getElementById("bitDepth").value);
var durationMins = parseFloat(document.getElementById("duration").value);
if (isNaN(fps) || isNaN(durationMins) || fps <= 0 || durationMins <= 0) {
alert("Please enter valid positive numbers for Frame Rate and Duration.");
return;
}
// Split resolution
var resParts = sensorSelect.split("|");
var width = parseInt(resParts[0]);
var height = parseInt(resParts[1]);
// ARRIRAW Calculation
// Total bits per frame = width * height * bitDepth
// Total bytes per frame = (width * height * bitDepth) / 8
// Total bytes per second = (width * height * bitDepth * fps) / 8
// Result in Megabytes per second (Binary MB/s – MiB/s)
var bytesPerSecond = (width * height * bitDepth * fps) / 8;
var mbPerSecond = bytesPerSecond / (1024 * 1024);
// Total storage in Gigabytes (GB)
// MB/s * 60 seconds * minutes / 1024
var totalGB = (mbPerSecond * 60 * durationMins) / 1024;
// Time per 1TB (1024 GB)
var oneTBInMinutes = (1024 * 1024) / (mbPerSecond * 60);
var hours = Math.floor(oneTBInMinutes / 60);
var minutes = Math.round(oneTBInMinutes % 60);
// Update UI
document.getElementById("dataRateOutput").innerText = mbPerSecond.toFixed(2);
document.getElementById("totalStorageOutput").innerText = totalGB.toFixed(2);
document.getElementById("driveTime").innerText = hours + "h " + minutes + "m";
document.getElementById("resultsArea").style.display = "block";
}