This reminded me to do a clean sweep of the Zwift folder on my iPad. I have to use a 3rd party program (iMazing) to access this folder because Zwift, for some stupid reason, thinks endlessly filling up the application folder with screenshots is a good idea. I just deleted 994 of those pesky screenshots freeing up nearly 400MB in space.
Now I see that Zwift thinks automatically recording 15 second videos is something we need.
Where are these videos going to be saved? To the almost impossible to access app folder again?
Will we have the option to disable video screenshots (and thus save not only space but battery because I’m sure video recording is quite an processor intensive operation. Not to mention the upload time. It’s bad enough with the time it takes to upload all those screenshots. Forced uploading of videos after every ride? Please, no. Not everyone has high speed internet.)?
I suspect this relates to the connection drop issues people are having, which also coincides with data spikes (data sent to Zwift) that I’m seeing of 4-14Mb every 10’ish seconds. I also think its not pure video they capture as those of us with 4K would kill some network connections and storage requirements so possibly its enhanced rider data for nearest 100 so Zwift can just send rider data down the the line to us as if they are real, and we use local assets, cpu and Zwift app engine to process / stitch together much like we do now.
Now makes sense why back in Nov they stopped saving 4k versions of in-ride photos and auto save as 1920x1080 - the photo saving will help avoid packet loss during photo events.
To answer your question, I don’t think they will save the data / vid locally, or at least not many “captures” as I calculated the spikes that I see generate approx 600MB per hour assuming 14Mb per 10 secs.
Fortunately there is an option in the rider profile to disable video screenshots (it’s enabled by default though).
Video files are 720 resolution and take up about 18MB of space each so do keep an eye on storage because with the notable moments being automatically saved it could start to chew up hard drive space quickly and we all know how expensive Apple hard drive space is. On mac the videos are saved to Movies/Zwift.
Also, the video screenshots record the previous 15 seconds so I guess there is some constant video conversion and storage to RAM going on to buffer that 15 seconds so that it is saved. I’m not sure how much of a performance hit that would be.
Yeah I got that assumption wrong! Now scratching my head with increase in bandwidth … oh well.
Do Video Screenshots use my network connection during an activity?
No. Video Screenshots work completely offline and video recordings are only saved locally to your device during your activity. The only time Video Screenshots use your network connection are if you have integrated your Zwift account with Strava and you choose to upload them at the end of your activity.
I’m sure this will impact some very low-end devices but at least they seemed to have culled the very old ones last year so may not be too bad for those using it.
