iPhone Finally Caught Us...
by Darren Edwards
on
Sep 25, 2009 at 11:03:14 am
We've been avoiding post-producing for iPhone for as long
as possible, but it's finally caught us. Have found myself
co-developing a new regional TV channel with its founder
in love with the quality of Sky News on his iPhone.
Did a AVI - H.264/mp4 test last night with Premiere CS3 but
the office iPhones aren't liking it.
To that end, two questions:
1. Is there an optimal iPhone preset within CS3's media encoder?
2. Has anyone come across a R&D/workflow article on how Sky
(or similar) developed its content for iPhone streaming?
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Ron Lindeboom on Sep 25, 2009 at 3:17:48 pm
Don't use Premiere to compress for the iPhone. Spend $29 to upgrade to Quicktime Pro from the Apple Store and use its presets and everything will be right as rain in the world.
Adobe's compression from both Premiere and After Effects is, shall we be nice and say, very crappy for stuff like this.
Create your full resolution movies from Premiere, throw then into QT and export for the iPhone.
It's a $29 solution that will save your nerves far more than that.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Chris Blair on Sep 26, 2009 at 12:14:18 am
We've been doing a lot more ipod/iphone compression for web sites and we've run into a problem where H264 files using either the m4v or mp4 extensions won't play on the iphone, but if you simply change the extension to .mov on the file, iphone plays it fine.
We have the correct mime types setup on our webserver so that's not the problem. The encoding is correct since the the exact same file plays fine by just changing the extension. We've tried using different encoding apps, including Quicktime, Handbrake, Carbon Coder and Procoder, and made sure all the specs, from codecs to pixel size and data rates are within the iphone specs, and we cannot get the m4v or mp4 files to play.
Ultimately, it's not a huge deal since they work fine by simply changing the extension. But I've found numerous posts on various Mac forums with others having the same problems and there doesn't seem to be a definitive cause or solution.
What's the magic potion for this issue?
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Darren Edwards on Sep 28, 2009 at 1:25:49 pm
Using QuickTime Pro, I exported an AVI for
'iPhone-H.264, 900 kbps' preset and experienced
a similar problem to Chris. The exported .m4v
didn't stream; renaming the extension to .mov
got it working but then Firefox didn't like it.
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Chris Blair on Sep 28, 2009 at 7:16:04 pm
I've alos posted this in the compression forum but so far not gotten any fixes. I've also found posts on Apple's iPhone discussions group of people having the same problem. For some, changing MIME types settings on the websites servers fixed the issue, but that fix didn't work for all and doesn't work for us.
Our files with .mov extensions (as well as mp4 and m4v) work fine in Firefox though. In fact, any of the file types and extensions work across all browsers on PCs and Macs. It's just the iPhone they don't work on.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Darren Edwards on Sep 29, 2009 at 8:56:16 am
Something tells me it shouldn't be this difficult but unfortunately
I'm not going to be able to offer an alternative to the client on
this one (he loves his iPhone too much), and so, we soldier on...
I didn't use the embed HTML in my Firefox test, by the way, so that
might account for my Firefox test failure.
Will be sending a few emails to colleagues at Sky (UK) today for
some pipeline tips (if any).
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Chris Blair on Sep 29, 2009 at 6:19:27 pm
Darren Edwards: Something tells me it shouldn't be this difficult
My sentiments exactly. I love my iPhone. But like almost every product on the planet, it's seriously overhyped when it comes to the apps and it's media capabilities.
Their iTunes store is a mess, and just getting a ring-tone on your phone is a confusing multi-step process.
As I've asked around among colleagues with iPhones, they all have trouble playing videos, often from iPhone targeted video sites. They've all experienced the problem of video sites (or videos on regular websites) that worked back in May or June, that are now not working since they've updated their phones.
Again...I think overall it's a great phone with a very slick and user-friendly interface, but video on the iPhone isn't very well implemented.
Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
www.videomi.com
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Chris Blair on Sep 30, 2009 at 4:49:18 pm
Just my opinion here...but I think it's a pretty complicated issue all the way around.
On the H264/mp4 issues, I think that's all on Apple, since playing back those files on the current mobile Safari browser uses Quicktime and not Flash. So I don't see how any current format, codec or playback problems with video on the iPhone has anything to do with Adobe or Flash.
I've read quite a few posts in this forum that suggest the burden is all on Adobe to make Flash work in the mobile Safari browser. Well...maybe, maybe not.
Most people think it benefits both Adobe and Apple to work any issues out with Flash (and I've read many websites and blogs that suggest Adobe is working on it and Apple is cooperating).
Adobe obviously provided support for the desktop Safari browser, and despite the control fears Apple may have concerning selling content and iPhone apps that they totally control, it seems it would benefit both to get at least Flash video working on the mobile version. Especially when an estimated 40 million iPhones are predicted to be in use by the end of 2009.
That said, there are compelling arguments for Apple to never support Flash, as noted in the article here:
Re: iPhone Finally Caught Us... by Darren Edwards on Oct 1, 2009 at 10:32:56 am
There are lots of interesting nuggets within those links.
This laughable one though:
In just two years, Safari has snagged close to 70
percent of the mobile browser market. Put another way,
most people accessing the Web from smartphones are
doing so on the iPhone.
requires a decent citation because I'm sure Opera Mini
will have a thing or two to say about that (UK market,
at least).
Codec wise, I'd be glad to see the back of Flash, H.264,
H.264 within Flash, and QT in favour of something that
we could all use, on and offline, on and off the web.
Bored of propriety media players now, bored of propriety
codecs (particularly HD) and bored of wrestling with
ineffectual propriety NLEs (HDD/HD camcorders).
