Cannot sync MPEG-4 to iPhone 3G iOS 3.1.2

[GregPQ]

Hi,
I'm wondering if my old 3G running iOS 3.1.2 is incapable of playing the video in question, which I subscribed to in iTunes University. It is the Planète Terre series from the University of Montreal and comes in MPEG-4. When I tried to drag to my iPhone, the error msg said that it was not copied to my iPhone "because it cannot be played on this iPhone".

I went ahead and tried Advanced|Create iPod or iPhone version. It did show a conversion progress bar for quite a while, but I did not see a second version created. I was under the impression that an iPhone could play a MPEG-4 file and that no conversion would be necessary.

Thanks,
Greg

 

[AdrianK]

I was under the impression that an iPhone could play a MPEG-4 file and that no conversion would be necessary.

Yes, but there's sub-restrictions for that as well (bitrate, resolution, profile, audio etc). By any chance, was this an HD podcast?

You will most likely find the converted version somewhere in your Music/iTunes/iTunes Media folder.

EDIT: Looking at the file, I believe it's the fact that it was encoded with 3 reference frames that's making it non-compliant for iOS devices pre-A4.

 

[GregPQ]

Thanks, Adrian. Wow. I appreciate such a quick--and definitive--reply.

I am finding that more and more Apps will not play on iOS 3 either.

Another argument in favor of upgrading to 4S, I suppose.

Thanks again.

Greg