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How is the quality of video when watching movies on the iPhone3G ?

Rybold

Rybold

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Jun 23, 2008
960
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California, USA
I have not purchased any videos from iTunes yet, but there is a certain movie that I want to purchase and watch on my phone. The movie has a lot of detailed scenes though, and I'm wondering how good the resolution of video is on the iPhone3G screen. All I have used so far is Youtube, which is obvsiously blurry. Can anyone that has watched iTunes-purchased movies on the iPhone3G give me some feedback on this? Thank you. :)
 
I find it good enough. I am not particularly picky but I suppose some movies might not be so great on it. For the most part I have been pleased.
 
The resolution and bitrate are actually quite amazing ( due to the fast processor inside the iPhone 3G)

If you want a free movie to try out go here

http://revision3.com/diggnation/2008-09-13hotels/

Download the Large quicktime file

It has already been encoded to play on your iPhone

-----------------------------------

a few side notes ( for the nerds)


The theoretical maximum specs for video for the iPhone are 640x 480 at 1.5mbs/ second

the M4v files you download from iTunes however break this rule, they are 853 X 480 (16:9) and have a bitrate of 1.6mb/sec or higher

Im not sure how, but the content from iTunes has a higher bitrate and resolution then what is possible

In anycase, the highest resolution videos can play on the iPhone are 480x 320 , or in 16:9 480x 270

-----------------------------
Youtube quality is really not that good over wifi, even worse the bitrate is dropped when you go on 3G.

"YouTube resizes your videos to 320x240 pixels, encodes them to Flash 7 at a data rate of approximately 250 kbps and compresses audio to mp3 (22.050 KHz, monophonic)"
 
Does anyone know why I am getting this error message, after trying to sync this Podcast video onto my iPhone? The video plays just fine on my computer's iTunes. :confused:
Do they mean "it's not capable of being played on an iPhone," or do they mean "we will not allow you to play it on an iPhone." ???
 

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Dr. Cabrera said:
The theoretical maximum specs for video for the iPhone are 640x 480
Click to expand...

Are you sure? 640 x 480 is a REALLY old technology. My first digital camera, back in 1998 (it was a "brick") only had 640 x 480. (It was a Sony Mavica that used 3.5 inch floppy disks).
 
Rybold said:
Are you sure? 640 x 480 is a REALLY old technology.
Click to expand...

Yes it's 640 x 480 that's NTSC SD quality.

There used to be 320 x 240 limit on the first video iPods as that was the screen res.

You can encode video to be wider, I have many 720 x 300 files.
This works because the 640 x 480 resolution isn't the actual limit its the number of pixels, 640x480 = 307200 pixels.
700 x 300 = 210000 which is a lot less, therefore will play, however sometimes iTunes kicks up an error with these files as the do not conform to the 640x480 limit, other times it copies and plays fine.
 
Rybold said:
Does anyone know why I am getting this error message, after trying to sync this Podcast video onto my iPhone? The video plays just fine on my computer's iTunes. :confused:
Do they mean "it's not capable of being played on an iPhone," or do they mean "we will not allow you to play it on an iPhone." ???
Click to expand...

Check the podcast, many are HD, like the Nasa iPods and a number are badly encoded, and just won't play on iPods.
 
Rybold said:
Are you sure? 640 x 480 is a REALLY old technology. My first digital camera, back in 1998 (it was a "brick") only had 640 x 480. (It was a Sony Mavica that used 3.5 inch floppy disks).
Click to expand...

Yes he is sure. :)

640x480 may sound like old technology but if the screen res is also 640x480 then it's the best quality that you can get, and on a 3.5in screen that resolution is very good!
 
Yeah, 640x480 practically looks like HD on a screen of this size.

I was watching an episode of The Unit the other day that I had recorded on my PC from broadcast. It reminded me just how amazing the picture and sound are on this thing.
 
I catch up on episodes of various TV program on the iphone while riding the subway to and from work and it works just fine. The screen is much better than I thought it would be. I wouldn't go smaller than 3.5 inches though, I've yet to see anyone watch a movie on a nano. lol
 
Clete2 said:
So what is the native resolution of the iPhone's screen?
Click to expand...

480 x 320

As stated before regardless of what the actual video is ( assuming it can play on the iPhone) the resolution of the video will never exceed 480x320


I will try and encode a 720 x 300 video thats under 1.5mb and see if it plays
 
Enough with resolution. I have a number if movies and shows purchased from iTunes and they look amazing on this screen!
 
I'm not just satisfied with the picture on the phone, but when I plug it into my large TV set with the apple video cable, we're very happy with the quality of the TV shows and movies that we've watched.
There are times when I carry it around and use it as a mini VCR instead of taking DVDs to friend's houses.
 
Rybold said:
Are you sure? 640 x 480 is a REALLY old technology. My first digital camera, back in 1998 (it was a "brick") only had 640 x 480. (It was a Sony Mavica that used 3.5 inch floppy disks).
Click to expand...

lol @ "640 x 480 is a REALLY old technology"

someone needs schooling in resolution and context.
 
Personally, I find the video quality on the iPhone (and iPod touch) absolutely amazing, and definitely the strongest feature of these products - in fact I watch more video on these than my large screen TV nowadays!
 
iblastoff said:
lol @ "640 x 480 is a REALLY old technology"

someone needs schooling in resolution and context.
Click to expand...

Ha, yeah. Someone should tell him that 640x480 is what DVDs display at on a computer screen. Or that most of YouTube uses 320x240. Or, heck, even the iTunes SD TV shows are 640x480. All of these are still pretty common things to see these days!

It doesn't really matter how "old" a size is. The fact is, 640x480 is still very common.
 
Rybold said:
I have not purchased any videos from iTunes yet, but there is a certain movie that I want to purchase and watch on my phone. The movie has a lot of detailed scenes though, and I'm wondering how good the resolution of video is on the iPhone3G screen. All I have used so far is Youtube, which is obvsiously blurry. Can anyone that has watched iTunes-purchased movies on the iPhone3G give me some feedback on this? Thank you. :)
Click to expand...

Download a copyright free movie from http://internetarchive.org and sync it to your iPod then watch it. Decide for yourself.
 
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