Will It Do ProRes 4K 120FPS With the iPhone 16 Pro Max? Testing a Fast External USB-C NVME SSD Drive

[@DavidHarry]

Will It Do ProRes 4K 120FPS With the iPhone 16 Pro Max? Testing a Fast External USB-C NVME SSD Drive So another test to find an external SSD that will record continuous long takes of ProRes 4K 120FPS with the iPhone 16 Pro Max. The external USB-C SSD storage drive that I am testing with the iPhone 16 Pro Max is one that contains a Sabrent NVMe USB-C enclosure with a Samsung SSD980 NVMe Gen3 M.2 SSD. This combination of enclosure and SSD is the fastest that I've found so far for both the iPhone 16 Pro Max and also the iPhone 15 pro Max. I am still yet to find any combination of enclosure and SSD that uses a Gen4 NVMe, as all the variations I have tried require more power or current than what any iPhone can supply. However, there will be no difference in speeds between using Gen 3 NVME and Gen 4 NVME SSDs, as both will be much faster than the maximum bandwidth of a 10Gb/s USB-C NVMe enclosure. While different NVME SSDs will have different and better abilities to sustain a minimum bitrate during constant writing and capturing. I now suspect an issue within the iPhone that's causing the data rate to drop over USB-C and causing the frame drops. More about this in another video after I have done more testing Here's some links to videos that I mentioned in this video and others you may find interesting: iPhone 16 Pro Max VS iPhone 15 Pro Max Speed Test With External USB-C NVMe SSD Storage Drive kzbin.info/www/bejne/f2XMnqGVnJWEfZY Very strange problems recording 4K 120FPS ProRes video to a Samsung T7 SSD with iPhone 16 Pro Max kzbin.info/www/bejne/qqPIdH6AmNJ4nbM Best and Fastest External USB-C SSD Drive for Your iPhone 15 using Samsung SSD 980 Sabrent Enclosure kzbin.info/www/bejne/j3nFnKV8abxkmas iPhone 15 Not Working With USB-C SSD kzbin.info/www/bejne/i5yQZKymbr-Waac iPhone 15 Pro Max SSD Speed Test With a 1TB Samsung T7 External USB-C SSD Storage Drive kzbin.info/www/bejne/eZy1hqSndsRnjJY iPhone 15 Problems With External SSD kzbin.info/www/bejne/nmqnmoKIi5t3iMU Here's my iPhone 16 playlist kzbin.info/aero/PLleKChtNUwZRmt2wIdprAJ5ry5XZSlTiW Here's my iPhone 15 playlist kzbin.info/aero/PLleKChtNUwZQS2gQH2AaeSnEj9iM_6tDX links to stuff used in this video, including some of the stuff I use to produce the video: iPhone 16 Pro Max geni.us/rdAXg iPhone 15 Pro Max geni.us/GPgIAmU The SSD is made up form two parts. A USB-C to NVMe enclosure by Sabrent and a 1TB Samsung SSD980 M.2 NVMe Gen 3 SSD. Sabrent enclosure amzn.to/3XJ9brF Samsung 980 SSD geni.us/WIWkLc Clamp - Ulanzi ST-02S geni.us/pWe6am Desktop tripod - Neewer desktop light stand geni.us/n9MWB The cases that I used for my iPhone is the Aurora ArmorAir by Benks. If you buy direct from the Benks website you can use my discount code - David15 - and get a 15% discount. iPhone 16 Pro Max case direct from Benks shrsl.com/4ozbh The same case on Amazon amzn.to/3XYVI05 iPhone 15 Pro Max case direct from Benks shrsl.com/4ozbl The same case on Amazon amzn.to/3ZMJWaB Atomos Ninja HDMI recorder geni.us/bIe9 Sony ZV-1 video camera geni.us/olHLpOY Apple MacBook Pro M1 Max geni.us/Us9xlhN Video chapters: 00:00 Intro 00:58 The test 05:36 Checking the test 11:29 End summary AMAZON ASSOCIATE DISCLOSURE I am an Amazon Associate. My Amazon links are Amazon affiliate links. I earn money from qualifying purchases when you use my Amazon affiliate links. OTHER EARNINGS AND COMMISSIONS I also earn money from other product links within my video description. For the sake of clarity and for the avoidance of any confusion, assume that I earn money from commissions from any and all links that I have within my video description. Amazon links to stuff used in this video: The gear that I use, have used or reviewed that I would recommend. Cameras: amzn.to/3PzC8mI Microphones: amzn.to/3tD6FaM Computers: amzn.to/3tuwHNr Phones: amzn.to/3ttqjWN iPads & Tablets: amzn.to/46t8wxG You can also send me a coffee donation via PayPal if you found my video super helpful: www.paypal.me/DavidHarry My Amazon recomendations product pages Amazon USA www.amazon.com/shop/davidharry Amazon UK www.amazon.co.uk/shop/davidharry If you would like to help my channel please use my global Amazon Affiliate links. I will be paid a small commission for anything you buy from Amazon when using these links. These commissions don't cost you any extra but really do help me to buy gear for my productions and to review: Amazon USA: geni.us/Amazon-USA Amazon UK: geni.us/Amazon-UK Amazon Deutschland: geni.us/Amazon-Deutschland Amazon Canada: geni.us/Amazon-Canada Contact for product reviews: [e-mail] www.DavidHarry.com I’m David Harry. Thank you very much for watching this video, take care and goodbye now. Cheers, Dave. #iphone16

[@WineWorldTV]

One last thing. The internal storage is plenty fast for anything. It clocks in around 1600 MB/s for write and 1200 MB/s for read. So it must be heat dissipation as the reason it needs to offload ProRes at high bitrates and frame rates to external storage. Even regular 4k/30 for clips lasting upwards of 1 hour, or more, will get the phone pretty hot. Indoors is usually no problem, but get outside, especially when you’re not in the shade, and the phone will shut down. 15 minutes clips are fine, but for people like me that produce long-form interviews where the camera never stops, this would be unacceptable if I wanted to, for some weird reason, shoot in 120 fps. So yeah, to your other point, 15 minutes should satisfy most situations using these settings.

[@DavidHarry]

Hi. Just on that point of recording externally. As other apps will record internally what the Apple Camera App doesn't. And yes, the internal storage is easily capable of the speeds. I think a possible reason for pushing the data externally, as far as the Apple Camera App is concerned. Is maybe because Apple don't like the idea of the internal storage being either filled up too quickly or there may even be concerns about wearing out the NAND. Filling the internal storage quickly may also lead to a lot more time answering support calls from customers. Maybe filling up a cloud backup is more headache than it's worth to Apple and the associate calls from disgruntled customers complaining about how their iPhone chewed up all their mobile data allowance. I know it's unlikely that "regular" phone users will be using "pro" features but in my experience, if there's an option there, many people will try it even if they don't understand or need it. Saying all that, I generally don't second guess anything that Apple does anyway, as whatever makes financial sense to them, which it quite obviously does, is quite often something that I can't wrap my head around 😆 Cheers, Dave.

[@WineWorldTV]

Love the tests! Some thoughts. Something changed with how the iPhone records video and I don't know when it happened. For some reason it records in VFR (Variable Frame Rate) rather than CFR. At least with most camera apps on the phone. I tested an iPhone 15 Pro Max with the native, Filmic Legacy, Black Magic, MoviePro, and Moment apps. Only the Moment app yielded CFR. I can't explain why this happened. Out of curiosity, I had MediaInfo look at some iPhone 11 Pro footage I shot earlier this year using the MoviePro app and it show CFR. I have a clip shot on an iPhone X using FilmicPro (now Legacy) that was VFR and all the iPhone 11 Pro clips using Filmic are the same. The Osmo Pocket (original) shoots CFR as does the Parrot ANAFI. In your clips, if you look at the pop-up window in MediaInfo you'll see "Frame rate mode: Variable" along with a Minimum Frame Rate and a Maximum frame rate. The reason for this is that these are not video cameras. So, over the course of the recording the phone (all phones BTW) will adjust the frame rate during the recording to accommodate the physical limitations of the device. With that said, my memory of Filmic is that it forced CFR, but that was when I switched to using the iPhone 8 as my sole video camera. I did use the 7 as well, but it wasn't my sole video camera at the time. Camcorders and Cinema cameras do use CFR. As far as other digital cameras, mirrorless, and DSLRs, I don't know as I don't have those (nor do I have a Cinema camera so I'm making an assumption there). I do know camcorders do, at least my consumer grade Canon from over 10 years ago does. Many of these devices are not dedicated video cameras, and as such, don't have the heat dissipation and possibly the hardware to sustain the data rates that CFR requires for long recording. I know the heat dissipation in DSLRs along with an outdated EU tax concerning DSLRs were primary reasons for the 29:59 time limit on video recording. And some other cameras (Digital, DSLR, etc.) had lower limits due to heat. But this is getting into uncharted territory for me since I can only truly comment on equipment I use. So somewhere along the way, the iPhones changed and the camera apps either didn't change with it, or the programmers didn't notice...except for the Moment camera app. The least likely of the "pro" apps IMO to actually ensure CFR. Now is this why you're getting dropped frames at 120 FPS? In theory, no. VFR should help mitigate that, but if there is something in the data path that's overheating or just creating some kind of buffer overflow, even for just a short time, then it's going to slow things down and cause frame drops. As a side note, that iPhone X clip is 55:49 in length. Its Minimum frame rate was 0.053 FPS and its Maximum was 31.579 FPS. It shows a Frame rate of 29.505. So it was "close enough" to the target of 30 to work. I had no sync issues with it as it's really the audio sampling rate being the same between devices that's important - I use external audio recorders and then sync in post. Hope this helps, and I'm accurate in my thinking!

[@WineWorldTV]

Hmmm, the iPhone 11 Pro clip was a 2 second clip. I thought it was a longer clip so it didn't have enough time to become a VFR clip I guess. So scratch that bit about it doing CFR from earlier this year. I have several other clips using that phone and the MoviePro app and they are all VFR. Even clips dating back to 2021 on the iPhone 11 Pro using Filmic are all VFR. And clips using the iPhone X and Filmic from 2019 and 2018 are also VFR. So it's pretty much dependent on the app. I found some iPhone X clips using the Moment app from 2019 (pretty much when it came out?) and those are CFR.

[@DavidHarry]

Hi. Thanks for your very detailed comment 👍 The one thing that I can definitely say is that there is some weirdness going on. I'm not entirely sure that Mediainfo is reading the files correctly. I have seen it misreport on "proper" video cameras that I have. Maybe there's odd metadata in the ProRes file as well. I'm still not sure that the files are VFR. I have done a lot of testing with the Blackmagic Camera App and done manual frame advancing in a timeline with the same frame rate as the files and not noticed any interpolated or duplicated frames. Which is what happens when using VFR in a CFR timeline/project. I'm also familiar with how VFR handles in an NLE, as I have had a number of action cameras over the years that use VFR to compensate for exposure. Also, ProRes as a standard does not support VFR. Now I'm not ruling out that Apple may have gone against their's and industry standards, as they have form for doing this and I don't trust them. However, if they have sneaked in VFR within certain scenarios, all they will be doing is shooting themselves in the foot, but again, they are also masters of doing that as well. BTW, I like certain Apple products (especially iPad Pro) but I do not rate them as a company and I'm far from being a fanboy. If they have sneaked in VFR, it maybe within certain instances of the codec being used and particular gamma settings , rec.709, LOG etc. And it may well be getting used as part of the exposure routine. However, the issue that I had with 120FPS being recorded as 100FPS in a recent previous video and certain things in this video, are definitely nothing to do with this. I ran some more tests with fast SSDs and had inconsistent results with the bitrates being sent over USB. I have a suspicion that the phone itself, maybe how it buffers/caches or even its USB subsystem, have problems and it's not the Apps, or at least the 3rd party Apps. I've also had others reporting similar issues in the comments. Anyway, more bring testing 😆 Thanks again for the time you very obviously took with your comment 👍 Cheers, Dave.

[@zahirkhan778]

Benchmark SSD speeds have nothing to do with this problem. You need to look at sustained write speeds. According to Apple you need a minimum of 450mb/s or 3.6Gbps write speeds. With Samsung 980 after 15 min the speed drops to 400mbps which is lower than Apple recommended speed. If you want an SSD to do 4k-120 pro res look for drives with >450mb/s sustained writes. They are out there but are expensive. Samsung drives are mid grade.

[@DavidHarry]

Hi. The problem isn't the drive. I've also tried with Thunderbolt drives via a dock and they too have problems and these include a WD SN850X which can sustain far more than even the 10Gb/s USB bus on the iPhone can support. Others have also reported dropped frames using fast video drives. Cheers, Dave.

[@huyhuynh9523]

Have you run the test using a Samsung Portable SSD-T9 which is a dual channel w/2000MB/s rating?

[@DavidHarry]

Hi. I don’t have a T9 but I have faster drives that can attach via a dock and they also have problems. Cheers, Dave.

[@huyhuynh9523]

@@DavidHarry Maybe you should wait till iOS 18.1 is released and test it again. iOS 18.0 is just not ready.

[@DavidHarry]

@@huyhuynh9523 Hi. Yes, I suspect you may be right. There may still be bugs to iron out. Cheers, Dave.

[@WineWorldTV]

It won't matter. The T9 uses USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 and Apple doesn't support it. At least they don't in their computers. As such I doubt they support it in their mobile devices. Using those drives will be the same as a USB 3.2 Gen 2 which top out around 1250 MB/s. David has already established (the only one that I'm aware of) that the "Thunderbolt" port doesn't actually fully support the full data transfer spec, but it is good enough for regular ProRes.

[@DavidHarry]

​@@WineWorldTV Hi. You are absolutely correct. Apple do have issues with 2x2 on their Macs (I think even all the current ones). However, I'm not sure if this extends to the portable devices but it would not surprise me if it did, as Apple obviously don't have any issues with not sticking strictly to industry standards. I mean, seriously, they'll accept a 40Gb/s request but not a 20Gb/s one and I think maybe not even a 10Gb/s request via 2X2. So with that said and no matter how good a T9 may be with other hardware and operating systems, I would just avoid them if using any Apple products even though there's nothing wrong with the T9. I think I am starting to narrow down a potential cause for some of the issues and I think it may be the Apple hardware itself. Having tested a number of fast drives, I have now seen very random inconsistencies that are looking totally random. Even in a previous video where my phone recorded 100FPS instead of 120FPS, which I initially thought may have been an indication of VFR as part of the exposure routine. The same drive then recorded a proper 120FPS take, only a short one, but with no issues. I'm just testing to see about using some of my Thunderbolt SSDs via a dock. While this is far beyond what is necessary for the 10Gb/s bandwidth of the phone. It would flood the USB bus and the drives being used have minimum sustained write capabilities beyond even 10Gb/s. Now even if this does work, I still wont see anything near the 1250MB/s (10Gb/s) of the USB bus speed (overhead etc.) and the speeds may not even be beyond the 926MB/s I had in a recent speed test video. However, if dropped frames were to occur, I think I would be safe in pointing the finger at the iPhone's hardware or maybe firmware or software. There may even be a simpler answer. The iPhone may simply not like the controller being used in the connected enclosure, dock or SSD. If the results of those tests are interesting I will do a video. Cheers, Dave.

[@fvadym]

8K on s24 ultra!!!!

[@AlistairHutchinson]

12k on Blackmagic URSA Mini Pro 12k!!!!

[@DavidHarry]

Hi. I have the S24 Ultra and while it's a great phone and I think it has great cameras (for a phone). It des not resolve anywhere near 8K (optically) and even its 8K is nowhere near the bitrates being used own this video. Cheers, Dave.

[@DavidHarry]

@@AlistairHutchinson Oh, come on Alistair. Stop comparing a proper video camera to something that you answer calls on 😆 Cheers, Dave.

[@AlistairHutchinson]

Sorry I assumed it was the start of a thread of non-relevant comments, my bad 😜

[@sonacphotos]

Maybe in resolution but no LOG, low bitrate and the phone optics just can't resolve detail that fine anyway. It's just a gimmick.