LiveLoop · Free Tool
Estimate the GB your recorded classes or webinars will need — by length, resolution and how many sessions you keep. Size a retention policy you can actually afford, before the library grows past your budget.
A recording storage calculator estimates how much disk or cloud space a library of recorded classes will occupy, measured in gigabytes (GB). The size depends mostly on resolution and length: one hour of recording is roughly 0.18 GB for audio-only, 0.45 GB at SD 480p, 0.9 GB at HD 720p and 1.8 GB at full HD 1080p. Multiply the per-hour size by the session length and the number of sessions you keep to get the total. Recordings that are mostly slides or screen-share encode smaller because there is less motion to compress. This tool turns your resolution, length and session-count inputs into a per-session and total GB figure, free and entirely in your browser.
Your recordings
Total storage
90 GB
for all sessions kept
Per session
0.90 GB
Per minute
15 MB / min
Indicative figures for planning only. File size depends on the codec, frame rate, bitrate, motion in the footage and how many cameras are recorded. Actual storage will vary — confirm in your own environment before relying on a result.
Typical recorded-video sizes at H.264. Multiply the per-hour figure by your session length and the number of sessions you keep. These are the same benchmarks the calculator above uses.
| Resolution | Storage / hour | 100 one-hour sessions | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Audio only | ≈0.18 GB | ≈18 GB | Lectures kept for revision audio |
| SD 480p | ≈0.45 GB | ≈45 GB | Lean archives, tight budgets |
| HD 720p | ≈0.9 GB | ≈90 GB | Most class recordings |
| Full HD 1080p | ≈1.8 GB | ≈180 GB | Detailed demos, webinars |
Benchmarks reflect typical H.264 bitrates; H.265/HEVC and slide-heavy content encode smaller. Treat as planning anchors.
Storage planning for recordings comes down to three multipliers: how big one hour is at your chosen resolution, how long each session runs, and how many sessions you decide to keep. The first is fixed by physics — more pixels per second means a bigger file. The second is set by your timetable. The third is the only one that is genuinely a policy decision, and it is where most of the cost is won or lost.
Doubling the resolution roughly quadruples the file size, because both the width and the height of every frame increase. Full HD 1080p looks crisp on a large screen, but for a recording that students mostly use to revisit an explanation or read a slide, HD 720p is usually indistinguishable in value and costs about half the space. Recording at the resolution the content actually needs, rather than the highest the camera offers, is the single most effective way to control a storage bill.
Video compression works by storing the changes between frames. A talking head moves constantly, so almost every frame carries new information. A slide that sits still for two minutes barely changes, so the encoder stores it once and notes that little happened after. This is why a screen-share-heavy lecture can be a third smaller than a full-motion recording of the same length, and why the slides option in the calculator applies a reduction.
The instinct to keep everything forever is expensive and, for recordings of students, carries a duty of care. A recording is most useful in the weeks right after the class, when absentees catch up and students revise. Its value tapers as the term moves on. A sensible policy keeps recordings for a defined window — a term, an exam cycle — then archives or deletes. This keeps the live library small, the cost predictable, and the personal data of students held only as long as it serves a purpose, in line with the data-minimisation principle of the DPDP Act 2023.
To size a full year, take the storage per session, multiply by sessions per week, then by the weeks you teach. A coaching centre running twenty HD hours a week across a forty-week year is recording roughly 720 GB before any compression — manageable if you retain a rolling window, unwieldy if you keep every file indefinitely. Run the numbers before the year starts, decide the window, and you turn an open-ended cost into a fixed, defensible line item.
"We run skilling cohorts back to back, and the recordings were piling up with no plan. I used this to work out that a term of HD sessions was around 90 GB, then set a 90-day window with an archive for the few we must retain for audit. On LiveLoop the recordings sit in tiers with that window built in, so I am not paying to store last year's batches that nobody opens."
From the estimate to the library
Knowing the GB is step one. LiveLoop records every class automatically to cloud storage and auto-shares the recording with students who were absent. Retention runs on tiers — 14 days free, 90 days by default on paid plans, up to 12 months extendable — rather than one ever-growing bucket, which keeps recordings of students to a defined, access-controlled window. See how class recording works.
Auto
every class recorded
Tiers
14d / 90d / 12-mo windows
Absentees
auto-shared the recording
MP4
download for offline review
This page answers one question: the storage a saved recording library needs. It does not estimate the live bandwidth or data a class uses while it runs — that is the bandwidth & data-usage estimator. It does not price the time a meeting consumes — see the meeting cost calculator. And it does not convert a class time across regions — that is the time-zone meeting scheduler. For the product capability behind recording and retention rather than the estimate, see class & meeting recording.
Recording storage FAQ
Roughly 0.45 GB at SD 480p, 0.9 GB at HD 720p and 1.8 GB at full HD 1080p. Audio-only is about 0.18 GB per hour. Mostly-slides or screen-share recordings with little motion encode smaller than full-motion video.
Multiply storage per session by the number of sessions you'll keep. For example, 100 one-hour HD sessions is about 90 GB. Estimating this first lets you choose a retention window you can afford instead of letting a library grow without limit.
Yes. Full HD 1080p is roughly four times the size of SD 480p for the same length, because there are far more pixels to encode each second. Recording at HD 720p rather than 1080p, where 1080p isn't needed, halves the storage.
It multiplies a typical size-per-hour for the chosen resolution by the session length in hours and the number of sessions kept, applying a reduction if the slides option is ticked. It's an indicative planning estimate based on typical H.264 bitrates, not a measured file size.
Decide how long a recording stays useful — often a term or exam cycle — then keep that window and archive or delete older files. Estimating total storage first helps you pick a window you can afford, balancing student access against cost and data-minimisation duties.
Class recordings can contain the personal data of students, so keeping only what you need for a defined period supports the data-minimisation principle of the DPDP Act 2023. A clear retention window and access controls matter more than indefinite storage.
Usually yes. A static slide or document with little on-screen movement gives the encoder less to compress, so the file is smaller than a full-motion camera recording of the same length. The slides option applies a reduction for this.
No. The calculation runs entirely in your browser. The resolution, length and session count you enter are never uploaded or stored.
LiveLoop retention runs on tiers rather than a single unlimited bucket: 14 days on the free tier, 90 days by default on paid plans, and up to 12 months extendable on contract. This keeps recordings of students to a defined, access-controlled window.
For most classes, HD 720p is clear enough to read a face or a slide and uses about half the storage of 1080p. Reserve full HD for sessions where fine on-screen detail genuinely matters, such as a high-resolution demo.
LiveLoop records every class to cloud storage with tiered retention and absentee auto-share — nothing to install.
