Comments on iphonePOV: Kick-Ass Web Video For Your iPhone

And another thing.. The Apple site that you mentio...

2007-07-17T21:01:00.000-07:00

And another thing.. The Apple site that you mention here consistently crashes my iPhone. Since it's clearly an iPhone page (having iphone in the url) I wish they had made it a little more iphone friendly, formatted it better for the device, and maybe had less trailers per page.

Actually, the trailers are streaming, but they are...

2007-07-12T12:04:00.000-07:00

Actually, the trailers are streaming, but they are using 'progressive download', not RTSP. Progressive download is a very effective and viable form of streaming, however, it has serious limitations. The most significant limitation (for the iPhone) is that if the device runs out of memory, the download stream will permanently stop. So, basically, until Apple updates the iPhone system to support RTSP, or releases a version with a much bigger hard drive, it is very unlikely long-format streams are forthcoming.

2007-07-12T11:52:00.000-07:00

This comment has been removed by the author.

sorry.. didn't realize how big that excerpt was.. ...

2007-07-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

sorry.. didn't realize how big that excerpt was.. and the end got cut off..

go here: http://developer.apple.com/iphone/designingcontent.html

Bottom line is that I think the trailers are not actually streaming.

The iPhone currently does not support real time st...

2007-07-12T11:34:00.000-07:00

The iPhone currently does not support real time streaming server. My guess is that these play quickly because they use quicktime reference movies to determine the bandwidth and codec compatibility. Plus they're really short.. only a few minutes..

Here's an excerpt from the developers guide:

Encode Video for Wi-Fi and EDGE

You can use the QuickTime Player Pro Export command and the following exporters to prepare video content for iPhone:
The Movie to MPEG-4 exporter with the following settings prepares movies for Wi-Fi.
In the H.264 video options, make sure you restrict the encoder to use the Baseline profile, and select "Faster encode (Single-pass)" encoding in the Video Options dialog.
Video settings: 900 kbit/sec, H.264, 480 x 360; frame rate: current; preserve aspect ratio using: Fit within size
Audio settings: 128 kbit, AAC-LC
.mp4 file
The Movie to 3G exporter with the following settings prepares movies for EDGE.
Video settings: 64 kbit, H.264, 176 x 144; frame rate: 10 or 15; preserve aspect ratio using: Letterbox or Crop
Audio settings: 16 kbit, AAC-LC
.3gp file
In each exporter, turn off streaming; iPhone does not stream media using RTP/RTSP.

Size Movies Appropriately

In landscape orientation, the iPhone screen is 480 x 320 pixels. Users can easily switch the view mode between scaled-to-fit (letterboxed) and full-screen (centered and cropped). You should use a size that preserves the aspect ratio of your content and fits within a 480 x 360 rectangle. 480 x 360 is a good choice for 4:3 aspect ratio content as it will keep the video sharp in full-screen view mode.

Don’t Let Bit Rate Stall Your Movie

When viewing media over the network, bit rate makes a crucial difference to the playback experience. If the network cannot keep up with the media bit rate, playback stalls.

Use Supported Movie Formats

The following movie formats are supported:
H.264 Baseline Profile Level 3.0 video, up to 640 x 480 at 30 fps. Note that B frames are not supported in the Baseline profile.
MPEG-4 Part 2 video (Simple Profile)
AAC-LC audio, up to 48 kHz
.mov, .mp4, .m4v, .3gp file formats
Any movies or audio files that can play on an iPod.