QuickTime and iTunes are reasonably convenient and create great high-quality conversions, but the files are large and the conversion is slow. mov file, but saving as a self-contained file offers less potential for later issues. You can choose "save as a reference file" which is faster and creates only a small.
This happens without converting the actual audio or video, so it's not that slow. You can get around that by opening the files in QuickTime Player first and then using Save As from the File menu to save them as. But be warned: iTunes doesn't handle multithreading very well and becomes much less responsive during the conversion process.Īlso, iTunes is rather picky about the files it will import, even with Perian installed. This has the advantage that you can batch convert a set of files. However, the iPod and iPhone settings will scale down the video and use less efficient compression.Īnother way to accomplish the same thing is to import the files in iTunes and choose "Create iPod or iPhone Version" or "Create iPad or AppleTV Version" from the Advanced menu-again, both are compatible with the iPhone 4. All of these files will play on the iPhone 4 and the other devices with the same capabilities mentioned above. The iPod preset creates files that are compatible with iPods, the iPhone preset files that are compatible with older iPhones, and the AppleTV preset files that are compatible with the older AppleTV. mkv files and many more, and simply choose "Export" from the File menu. After that, you can use QuickTime Player 7 (but not QuickTime Player X) to open.
The first order of business is to install Perian, which is a set of QuickTime components that lets you open various types of video files using QuickTime or any application that uses QuickTime under the hood, such as iTunes. The easiest options come via Apple's software.
So how to go about creating those H.264 files? Apple's software The main profile rather than baseline profile means that it's possible to use more effective compression. That's a significant step up from the baseline profile level 3.0 (720x480x30 or 720x576x25) that the older iPhones and iPod touches support, and even an improvement over the older Apple TV, which could only play 1280x720 video at 24 frames per second or less. What that means is that you can play HD video with a resolution of up to 1280x720 and a framerate of 30 frames per second.
The iPhone 4, the iPad, and the latest versions of the iPod touch all support H.264 main profile level 3.1. But what if it's not in the right format? In that case, just add the file to iTunes and sync. The easiest way to get video is through Apple's iTunes Store, but there are many reasons why you might want to watch videos that you already have lying around instead. If you're lucky, your video is already in a format that the iPhone supports.
The iPhone 4 just begs for some good video content to be played on its high-resolution display-which, contrary to popular belief, isn't made of retinas.