1

UPDATE: OK, so in response to the suggestions below, I formatted to exFAT. Transferred a movie on to it. Put it in the tablet. Guess what? It won't read it. Says the card is blank and needs to be formatted. So I guess the tablet won't read exFAT-formatted cards. Any other suggestions? By the way, this is the tablet I'm working with: phonearena.com/phones/Verizon-Wireless-Ellipsis-7_id8207 Like I said, it's very basic.

First off, please don't tell me to reformat my drive to NTFS. LOL

I have a very basic tablet that will hold an external microSD card up to 32GB. Obviously, in today’s world, that doesn’t mean much. I bought a 256GB microSD to put in there but found it won’t work unless it’s formatted to FAT32. OK, done. However, as you know, you can’t transfer anything to it over 4GB – a problem if I want to transfer movies and the like! I tried reformatting to NTFS, but then of course the tablet wouldn’t read the card.

Is there a workaround to this so I can transfer large files onto the card – and still have my tablet be able to read them? The tablet itself only has 8GB of storage on it, most of which is filled by the o/s and apps already; there’s less than 1GB free. I'd really like to be able to travel with my tablet and watch movies, but I'm kinda stuck.

The above is about the extent of my knowledge with this stuff. If there IS a workaround, could you please “dumb it down” for me so I can easily do it? ;)

Help?

Thanx, Jamie

4 Answers 4

0

Android tablets only support FAT and FAT32 out of the box. There's also a chance that some ext* filesystem would work, but Windows doesn't support these.

Some Android devices can be flashed with modified firmware that supports NTFS, exFAT and more, but flashing such firmware requires advanced knowledge about Android devices and invalidates your warranty (with rare exceptions). It also involves risk of making the device unusable.

All in all, you're out of luck if you want to store files larger than 4 GB

However, maybe you don't need epic-quality FullHD movies on your tablet? It has just a 1280x800px screen anyway, so 1280x720 should be good enough. You can get really good quality under 4 gigs with this resolution. You can compress your movies to be under 4 GB on your PC, then copy them to standard FAT32-formatted SD card.

19
  • Oh, I don't care about them being epic quality. As long as their watchable and not so pixelated you can't see what's going on, I'm totally fine with that. In addition to movies, I have Tivo files that I'm converting to MP4s, and they average about 6 or 7GB. So given that info, how do I compress them, as you suggest? And if I compress, will I be able to view them on the tabloid?
    – Jamie
    Feb 1, 2016 at 1:16
  • @jamie, re-encoding to 1280x720 resolution with 5 Mb/s constant bitrate will result in good quality video sized about 2.25 GB per hour. Lowering bitrate makes files smaller at the cost of quality. You can estimate resulting file sizes by multiplying bitrate in Mb/s by 0.45 and then by length in hours. Eg. 1 hr 30 mins with 5 Mb/s bitrate: 5 * 0.45 * 1.5 = 3.375 GB. I think Handbrake should let you do that reencoding.
    – gronostaj
    Feb 1, 2016 at 11:46
  • Thank you! So I downloaded Handbrake. I don't know how to upload a screenshot here, but where in the program would I find the re-encoding option? I selected my source file, looks like it defaults to mp4, but where do I make it 1280x720 and change the constant bitrate? Sorry, totally new at this. Help is much appreciated.
    – Jamie
    Feb 1, 2016 at 20:13
  • @jamie Select source file, then Android Tablet profile from the right pane. On the Video tab change Framerate to Same as source, select Constant framerate. Select Avg bitrate and enter expected bitrate value there (5 Mbps = 5000 kbps). Enter Destination path and click Start.
    – gronostaj
    Feb 2, 2016 at 11:54
  • Well, that sorta worked! It definitely shrank the file (now <1MB - it's 151,791KB) so it went onto the FAT32 card. The sound is fine but you can't see the picture. It's like it's just shadows, with ginormous pixels. I used your specs, above, so I'm not sure what else to do. Is there another setting or number that I can use that will help with the image? Guessing if I make it a little bigger somehow (just not sure what to change?), the picture will be better? I obviously have room if it went from 6.6GB to a few hundred KB. Sorry to keep bugging you but you've been so helpful. Thanx!
    – Jamie
    Feb 3, 2016 at 0:28
2

Depending on the tablet you're using, it might be able to read exFAT. This is an extended version of the FAT-filesystem, that allows single files >4 GB. Simply try to format the card from your pc, then plug it in the tablet and see if it is readable.

1
  • 1
    Note: exFAT is really only tangentially related to FAT. Its main relationship is that it was designed for the same use cases that FAT used to be used but can't anymore because of its constraints. But more importantly: exFAT is a proprietary filesystem guarded by patents and governed by strict licensing terms. Thus, it is not supported by some operating systems and devices. Jan 31, 2016 at 4:11
0

Well under Linux this would be pretty easy, for Windows you just need a tool like GSplit to split the file and transfer it (assuming you run Windows on both the tablet and your PC)

0

Ok. The best solution for it is to change your SD card from FAT32 to exFAT filesystem. To do this you should backup all your data from your SDCard.

After that you must format your card into exFAT

If you're using linux:

  1. Open terminal and type the following command in order to install exFAT formatting utility:

    sudo apt-get install exfat-utils
    
  2. Then, in the same terminal list your device list using this command:

    lsblk
    

It will show you the disk list, find your SDCard name, it's called sdX# very often (where # means a number). Something like this:

NAME   MAJ:MIN RM   SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda      8:0    0 596.2G  0 disk 
├─sda1   8:1    0   450M  0 part 
├─sda2   8:2    0   100M  0 part /boot/efi
├─sda3   8:3    0    16M  0 part 
├─sda4   8:4    0   500G  0 part 
└─sda6   8:6    0  95.6G  0 part /
sdX      9:0    0    16G  0 disk
└─sdX1   9:1    0    16G  0 part /
sr0     11:0    1  1024M  0 rom  
  1. Run this command (adjust it to your case):

    mkfs.exfat /dev/sdX1
    
  2. Confirm any warning or message it shows, and done.

If you're using windows

  1. Open Computer in Default File Explorer.
  2. Right click to your external SD Card and click on 'Format'.
  3. Select filesystem as 'exFAT'.
  4. Choose a label or something else you want.
  5. Choose if it's a Quick Format or not (Uncheck this option if you want it quick).
  6. Click on Format and wait some time.
  7. Done!

After formatting (Linux/Windows):

  1. Safely remove your SDCard and plug it in again.
  2. Restore all your data to SDCard and then put it back into your tablet.
  3. Done, enjoy your movies!

NOTE: It is important to guess if your tablet supports exFAT filesystem, mostly they do.

GOOD LUCK!

1
  • OK, so I formatted to exFAT. Transferred a movie on to it. Put it in the tablet. Guess what? It won't read it. Says the card is blank and needs to be formatted. So I guess the tablet won't read exFAT-formatted cards. Any other suggestions? By the way, this is the tablet I'm working with: phonearena.com/phones/Verizon-Wireless-Ellipsis-7_id8207 Like I said, it's very basic.
    – Jamie
    Feb 1, 2016 at 0:24

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .