Encoding video for iPhone

[malreynolds]

I've got video in different formats, and I want to reencode a bunch for optimal iPhone viewing. Is there a well known profile that will guarantee iPhone happiness? Or is it just do an h264 encode at the iPhone screen resolution and we're set?

Can i do it from quicktime pro?

 

[daveschroeder]

No one will know the exact specs until Friday, but it's safe to say that anything the iTunes store supports (e.g., up to 640 x 480 H.264) and probably along the lines of what any modern iPod can play back will be supported by iPhone. And yes, you can encode from QuickTime Pro, as the iPhone itself will likely be running some variant of QuickTime 7.

Why not wait until Friday to reencode? We'll know soon enough.

 

[zedsdead]

It would really be nice if the iPhone can read the Apple TV Video Specs as well. Being able to encode a DVD to full Specs (720x480 Anamorphic or 843x480) would be great since I can get full quality out of my DVD library and not have to encode for both devices.

I can understand it not being able to play back the 1280x720 HD, but even Full SD as I stated above would be perfect.

I really want the iPhone to have a Chapter Marker Selection Function like Quicktime and iTunes. It is very annoying that the iPod, and especially the Apple TV do not allow you to Select Chapter Markers from a menu. I hate having to skip each chapter marker to the next, especially since it takes so much time for them to load. A Pulldown Menu on the iPhone (think iTunes and Quicktime as I said) would be optimal.

Also, the display is said to be "Widescreen" but people here are saying it is 480x320 which is 3:2 (1.5:1). Native Widescreen is 16:9 (1.78:1). Does anyone have the actual specs? Even if it is 3:2, that is better than the 4:3 iPod display, but all the regular widescreen movies will still have black bars (Cinescope, 2.39:1, of course will have the bars unless you double tap).

 

[HiRez]

I wonder if they'll have an option for iTunes to automatically re-encode video as it's synced for the iPhone specs, as you can have it re-encode audio to 128 kbps AAC now. Of course if they let you choose some options for quality and format, it'd be even better.

 

[malreynolds]

Why not wait until Friday to reencode? We'll know soon enough.

I could. Just would be nice to do something other than refreshing this forum every 15 minutes until friday. Like re-encoding my tv episodes to iPhone friendly formats.

 

[scootermafia]

I've made all my stuff like this -
Calculate aspect ratio (width/height) and divide that into 480 to get the new height, 480x***. Use iSquint (or VisualHub if you need to stitch 2 vids together). Set it to h.264 and under advanced options, type in the resolution, 480x*** and type in 256kbs video, 64kbs audio. This will make movies very small, about 200-300mb each, and still the h.264 codec somehow ensures these videos still look remarkably good and clean despite the woefully low bitrate. iTunes video releases at 1500kbs (6x the size) still look worse than a DVD rip of your own doing, for some ungodly reason. I like things my way. With this technique, even a 4GB iPhone seems feasible.

 

[BLACK MAC]

Did anyone try uploading a video that is not soo huge??