Converting for iPod vs iPhone, MP4 vs H.264
Posted: Fri Jan 09, 2009 5:38 am
I'm able to convert a movie shot on my panasonic Lumix camera to play on my iPod using MediaCoder. But I cannot get it to play on my iPhone.
If I convert the movie to 'MPEG4' format (not H.264), the resulting file, when dragged to iTunes (v8.0.2.20), lands in the 'Movies' category, and synchs to my iPod Video, and plays fine. However, anything I convert in this manner (MPEG4) will not synch to the iPhone. [edit/update - I later realized I was not seeing the 'movies' section on the 'Video' tab for the iPhone device in iTunes. There are THREE sections; 'rented movies', 'TV Shows'; and 'Movies'. The 'Movies' section is at the bottom, and was not visible on my laptop screen (1024x768) and I did not see the scroll-bar (sounds dumb, but the layout of the screen suggested all the info was there...!). WHY the layout of these tabs is different from the iPod I don't know. Once I checked the box for movies, the synch occurred.]
I gave the source file to a friend who has 'toast', and he converted it to H.264 for me, and when I drag that file to iTunes, it lands in the 'TV Shows' category, and synchs to my iPhone, and plays on it. So my iTunes/iPhone setup is capable of playing files from my camera, I just can't convert them using MediaCoder.
But all attempts to convert to H.264 format using MediaCoder result in a file that will not be accepted by iTunes - it simply won't 'accept' the file; this suggests there is something incompatible with the H.264 format produced by MediaCoder? [Edit/Update: I later found that the problem was the settings for the H.264 codec; the default profile is 'auto'; I changed that to 'baseline', and the 'level' from '4' to '3', and that seemed to be the trick for me. Framerate, resolution, and other settings seemed less critical. I also got it to work using both the FAAC and the Nero audio encoders ].
Has anyone had success converting to the iPhone (as opposed to iPod) and if so, what is the trick? Thanks!
If I convert the movie to 'MPEG4' format (not H.264), the resulting file, when dragged to iTunes (v8.0.2.20), lands in the 'Movies' category, and synchs to my iPod Video, and plays fine. However, anything I convert in this manner (MPEG4) will not synch to the iPhone. [edit/update - I later realized I was not seeing the 'movies' section on the 'Video' tab for the iPhone device in iTunes. There are THREE sections; 'rented movies', 'TV Shows'; and 'Movies'. The 'Movies' section is at the bottom, and was not visible on my laptop screen (1024x768) and I did not see the scroll-bar (sounds dumb, but the layout of the screen suggested all the info was there...!). WHY the layout of these tabs is different from the iPod I don't know. Once I checked the box for movies, the synch occurred.]
I gave the source file to a friend who has 'toast', and he converted it to H.264 for me, and when I drag that file to iTunes, it lands in the 'TV Shows' category, and synchs to my iPhone, and plays on it. So my iTunes/iPhone setup is capable of playing files from my camera, I just can't convert them using MediaCoder.
But all attempts to convert to H.264 format using MediaCoder result in a file that will not be accepted by iTunes - it simply won't 'accept' the file; this suggests there is something incompatible with the H.264 format produced by MediaCoder? [Edit/Update: I later found that the problem was the settings for the H.264 codec; the default profile is 'auto'; I changed that to 'baseline', and the 'level' from '4' to '3', and that seemed to be the trick for me. Framerate, resolution, and other settings seemed less critical. I also got it to work using both the FAAC and the Nero audio encoders ].
Has anyone had success converting to the iPhone (as opposed to iPod) and if so, what is the trick? Thanks!