Video file formats

Question

Level 1

36 points

Video file formats

The iPhone 4 supports H264, MP4 & Motion JPEG file formats only. However, most common video formats also include FLV, AVI, RMVB, WMV, etc. I understand there are two ways to resolve it. One is to convert the unsupported file formats to one that supported by iPhone 4. The other one is to use other media player that can support more video file formats. Which way is the best solution? Thanks!

MacBook Air, iMac 27", Mac OS X (10.6.5), iPhone 4 - iOS 4.2.1

Posted on Dec 14, 2010 6:18 AM

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Answer 1

Dec 14, 2010 6:33 AM in response to Ray Li1

The iPhone supports open standard formats - the others are not based on open standards - ie: a closed/proprietary format.

I use an app named OPlayer, which plays .WMV video files that I receive via email from some Windows users and if I happen to come across some website using the closed/proprietary format.

If you have a number of videos with a closed/proprietary format that you want available on your iPhone for viewing, if there is a 3rd party app that provides for transferring these videos from your computer to the app via the iTunes sync process for viewing with the app on your iPhone, you can use that. If not, you will need to convert these videos to an open video format/standard.

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Answer 2

Rudegar

Level 10

180,540 points

Dec 14, 2010 7:53 AM in response to Ray Li1

VLV Media player for iphone also support some formats
but be sure to lower the resolution if it's high otherwise the iphone will not play them very well

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Answer 3

Ray Li1 Author

Level 1

36 points

Dec 15, 2010 5:31 AM in response to Rudegar

I have tried VLC Media Player that supports FLV, RMVB, AVI, etc. file formats. However the quality is poor such as blocky picture, out sync between video and audio, etc. I am unsure if iPhone is less capable of playing back such highly compresed file formats or the player poor performance. It works but does not work correctly.

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Answer 4

Ray Li1 Author

Level 1

36 points

Dec 15, 2010 5:40 AM in response to Allan Sampson

I also tried to convert FLV, AVI, RMVB, WMV file formats to MP4 for direct playback on iPod of iPhone 4 and it works correctly. There are two disadvantages. The file size will be increased by 2-4 times and the convertion time is quite long, i.e. 1 GB output file takes about one hour. I am unsure if it depends on the performance of the video converter or not.

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Answer 5

Nov 22, 2011 7:03 PM in response to Ray Li1

I always convert those videos to mp4 with lower resolution for iPhone. I am using Total Video Converter, and there is a special format for iphone, maybe this can meet your demand.

Good luck!🙂

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Answer 6

Ray Li1 Author

Level 1

36 points

Nov 27, 2011 3:39 AM in response to greenfromkansas

Thanks for your advice. I have tried some free converter software and their speed is very slow. Could you please give me some idea how quick I can convert a 200 MB .flv to mp4. Thanks!

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