One of the most popular portable devices on the market today for video playback is Apple’s iPhone. To get the most out of your iPhone video viewing experience, we decided to provide some specific information to optimize your video to fit your needs.The iPhone is capable of playback of a few video formats, MPEG4 SP (simple profile) and MPEG4 AVC (Advanced Coding Profile, aka H264).For best quality, we recommend using H264/AVC, because of it superior quality.However, H264 is quite processor-demanding, and if you have an older computer to do the conversion, MPEG4 SP might be a better choice, due to its speed.

H264/AVC:

Pro:

Offers the best possible quality, format is the same as used in Bluray, as well as movies rented/purchased through iTunes.

Con:

Very processor-demanding to create as well as playback. Many recent devices, including the iPhone/iPods have an accelerator chip build-in to ensure a good performance

MPEG4 SP

Pro:

Fast, does not require much processor power to create/play back

Con:

Quality is not as good, requiring a larger file size for good results.

The iPhone specifications indicate that the device is capable of playback of H264 video at a maximum of 640×480 at 1500Kbps.

In fact, the maximum screen resolution suppored on an iPhone is 720×480, and the quality can exceed 1500Kbps as well.

The iPhone itself has a screen resolution of 480×320, so only when you use the TV-out feature of your iPhone (with a compatible dock) there really is no need to use the maximum settings.

On some community pages, people always mention to use the maximum, but really, if you watch video on your phone, wouldn’t you rather have a bunch of videos that are good quality than only a few that are perfect quality?

On an 8GB iPhone, I can fit almost 2 seasons of 24, or the first 14 James Bond movies at very good quality. If I would use the maximum settings, I might only be able to fit half a season of 24, or 5 movies.

iPhone full screen settings:

DVD Catalyst 3 has the capability to make any movie full screen on any device. Regardless what the resolution is.

To get full screen videos on your iPhone, follow these steps:

Start DVD Catalyst 3

Select Apple > iPhone (Standard) or Apple > iPhone (HQ) from the dropdowns on the left. The HQ profile is a little slower, but provides a slightly better quality.

Click on “Modify” right underneath the dropdowns, and make sure the screen size is set to 480×320.

In Modify, you can increase the audio quality to 160Kbps if you want, however, 128Kbps is good enough for our personal needs

If you desire, you can increase the video quality from 500Kbps to 700Kbps, but again, this is personal taste, going over 700 is barely noticable. If you use the HQ profile, you can use a 5% lower video quality setting to end up with the same quality as the Standard profile

If you are converting a movie with fast action scenes, changing the pass-option from 1 pass to 2 passes might help increasing the quality, but again, this is personal preference.2 passes is a bit slower with conversions, however, it can reduce”blocky” artifacts in most movies to a minimum.

In Global Settings, go to the “Conversion Tab” and make sure that “remove black bars from device” is enabled. This will remove black bars from the video, and adjust the sides of the movie to make it full-screen on your iPhone.

Start a conversion.

The above settings will make any DVD or video file appear in full-screen on your iPhone.

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iPhone full screen / zoom settings:

The above settings will make any movie full screen on your iPhone, however, in almost all cases, a small portion on the sides (for wide-screen movies) or from top and bottom (for standard definition movies) will be removed.

If you would like the option to decide during playback if you want full-screen or the full-movie, use the following settings:

Start DVD Catalyst 3

Select Apple > iPhone (Standard) or Apple > iPhone (HQ) from the dropdowns on the left. The HQ profile is a little slower, but provides a slightly better quality.

Click on “Modify” right underneath the dropdowns, and make sure the screen size is set to 720×320.  This is a custom resolution,only found in DVD Catalyst 3, which enables it to create video files of a better quality when you use the Zoom function for video on the iPhone. The resolution height is set to the height of the iPhone screen, and the width is set to the maximum it can accept.

In Modify, you can increase the audio quality to 160Kbps if you want, however, 128Kbps is good enough for our personal needs

For the selected resolution, it is recommended to use a video quality of 700Kbps or higher, going over 1000 is barely noticable. If you use the HQ profile, you can use a 5% lower video quality setting to end up with the same quality as the Standard profile

If you are converting a movie with fast action scenes, changing the pass-option from 1 pass to 2 passes might help increasing the quality, but again, this is personal preference.2 passes is a bit slower with conversions, however, it can reduce”blocky” artifacts in most movies to a minimum.

In Global Settings, go to the “Conversion Tab” and make sure that “remove black bars from file” is enabled. This will remove black bars from the video. This, combined with the custom 720×320 resolution will result in video files that will not have black borders by themselves, however, when you view them on your iPhone, they most likely will have black borders. Tapping on the iPhone screen shows a “Zoom” button (arrows) on the right top side, which will zoom the video to full screen. For widescreen movies, the zoom will scale the video to it’s original size, and while it does not display the sides, zooming out will show the full movie (with black borders at top and bottom)

Start a conversion.

The above settings will make any DVD or video file appear in full-screen on your iPhone, or in full original width if desired.

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iPhone TV-Out settings:

To get the best results for video files if you use TV-Out on the iPhone, use the following settings:

Start DVD Catalyst 3

Select Apple > iPhone (Standard) or Apple > iPhone (HQ) from the dropdowns on the left. The HQ profile is a little slower, but provides a slightly better quality.

Click on “Modify” right underneath the dropdowns, and make sure the screen size is set to 720×480.  (while the official Apple specification for the iPhone states that the maximum resolution is 640×480, the iPhone actually accepts 720×480 and anything less than that)

In Modify, you can increase the audio quality to 160Kbps if you want, however, 128Kbps is good enough for our personal needs

For video quality, we recommend using 1200Kbps at least, but 1500Kbps is recommended

If you are using 1500Kbps, enabling 2-pass might result in unplayable files.

In Global Settings, go to the “Conversion Tab” and make sure that “remove black bars from file” is enabled. This will remove black bars from the video,enabling you to use the zoom function on the iPhone to make the video full screen or to have it look as the original.

Start a conversion.

Video quality is relative to the person who views the file. Combined with the above information, DVD Catalyst 3 offers many adjustments that can be made to get the best possible quality or the smallest files (more movies). Some people prefer to have the best possible quality, while others rather have enough on the device to ensure they have something to watch on a trip. The default settings for every device in DVD Catalyst 3 are selected based on a good quality vs a reasonable file size. Quality can always be better, but will also result in bigger file sizes.