MP4's on iPhone 3G

[TrailerTrish]

I've been able to play many mp4's on my iPhone, but some I cannot, and I am not sure why. One of them I can put into iTunes and then on my phone, but another gets me the message that it cannot be played on my phone, and I have no idea why. Does anyone know?

Also, I see to have been able to play one .avi on it, which I understand I should not be able to do, but it worked for some reason with this one file.

It sure would be nice if I could play all my videos on my phone, but I can't. Is there a way to get the phone to deal with .avi's and .divx?

wondering....

 

[RedCroissant]

I've been able to play many mp4's on my iPhone, but some I cannot, and I am not sure why. One of them I can put into iTunes and then on my phone, but another gets me the message that it cannot be played on my phone, and I have no idea why. Does anyone know?

Also, I see to have been able to play one .avi on it, which I understand I should not be able to do, but it worked for some reason with this one file.

It sure would be nice if I could play all my videos on my phone, but I can't. Is there a way to get the phone to deal with .avi's and .divx?

wondering....

Normally what would cause this is the resolution of the video. If you burned/converted it yourself, you might have made one video the correct resolution while the other is not.

I use handbrake to convert all my movies and since I only care about very high quality for a small portion of them, I choose the universal option so that the movie I convert plays on all my devices.

 

[scaredpoet]

There's other possibilities too, not just resolution. "MP4" can mean lots of things. Think of the file as a container, and inside of it you can put different types of video and audio. Some of those types are compatible with the iPhone 3G, others not so much.

What you need to do is get some software like Handbrake (which is free), and run the file through it. Handbrake has presets for iPhones and other idevices that you can use to make sure the file plays on the device you want.