iPhone video playback is one of the most exiting
features on this
device not only because it supports high quality H.264 encoded video,
but also because of its nice 3.5 inch wide touch screen screen display. This size is just perfect, it is not too big, and it is portable.
Of course with the latest iPhone 4 Retina display, the iPhone again sets a new standard for video on portable touch screen phones.
The iPhone has a 3.5 inch touch screen display at a
resolution of 480 x 320. The iPhone video
formats supported are MPEG-4 and H.264 video with up to 2.5
Mbps at 640 by 480 pixels and 30 frames per second.
This
makes the iPhone a perfectportable video player that can play video
for up to 7 hours. The iPhone has 1.5:1 screen aspect ratio. Different
aspect ratios will be adjusted to fill the screen by zooming in the
video.
You
can access a zooming button by taping once on the screen while a video
is playing. When you tap this zooming button, which is located at the
top right corner, the video will be chopped to fill the screen. You can
also zoom in to fill the screen by double taping on the video while it
is playing.
There are several ways to watch video on the iPhone.
Each has has its own huge library of thousands of videos from different
categories.
1- Use the iTunes Video Store:
The iTunes
video Store
has a huge library of video that you can download for free or buy. The
iTunes video tab in the iTunes app in your iPhone gives you access to
hundreds of movies, TV shows, and music videos.
When you select any
of those categories, you can preview the video or buy it. The prices
range depending on the video, if it is music, video or a movie.
However, there are many free shows that you can stream online or
download.
You can even rent movies for $3.99 if you don’t want
to buy. Those videos, movies and shows are guaranteed to be the best
quality you can get on the iPhone.
2- Use YouTube to watch iPhone video:
YouTube videos are free. The YouTube
app
that comes with the iPhone is a very good source of millions of videos
that you can watch online for free. All the YouTube videos are H.264
encoded due to an agreement with Apple, and some of them have high
quality versions available.
You can only watch the high quality
version if you are over wifi of course. There are some hacks for
jailbrocken iPhones that allow you to download
YouTube videos right on your iPhone so you can watch the high
quality version anytime you want.
Another method of watching iPhone video is by installing video applications from the AppStore. There are many apps that allow you to
watch recorded video on-line using wifi or even 3G or EDGE connections.
Those
are some of the bestapps I found that play video over both 3G and
EDGE, so you don’t have to have wifi. The quality of those videos are
very good, and they cover a big range of categories such as drama,
family, entertainment, events, news, comedy, film, and many more.
All
the videos are recorded, so you can watch them anytime. You can even
pause and rewind. So they are very good if you are in an airport or
just want to burn some time while you are waiting for something.
vSNAK
is one of the best video collection available in the App Store. It is
free, works on 3G/EDGE, and the interface is really nice. You can brows
videos from many different channels.
mDialog has many Genres of family, events,
business, and many others.
msnbc is another app that has many news videos.
Joost
has a large collection of Film, Music, and Shows. Each one of those
categories is broken down into classic, drama, horror, animation and
many more.
Mediafly is another nice interface app. On the
left side of each stream, it tells you if it is a video or audio. There
are many channels from comedy, cars, entertainment and many others.
AppVee
is a free app at the AppStore that previews many apps for the iPhone.
Now you don’t have to read reviews, just watch the video for many apps
from different categories.
There are many more video apps at the App Store,
just search for video, you will find Discovery Channel, iCam, Qik,
Family Guy ($1.99), Television ($2.99) and many more.
4- Convert Video to iPhone:
The
most common iPhone video playing is converting
your favorite videos to
the iPhone mp4 format using
your Mac or PC computer. Then sync your
converted videos using iTunes.
Converting
videos to iPhone guarantees that the video you want is always on your
iPhone and ready to play at any time.
• It is time consuming
as you have to wait for
the conversion and depending on the length of the video and the speed
of your computer this time could be very long.
• It takes
unnecessary space.
Now you have to have two copies of the same video.
The original video and the converted iPhone video, which use space on
your computer. Also, you have to have the video on your iPhone, which
takes another space on the iPhone itself.
• It could have some
quality issues. If
you don’t select the correct resolution, and the
correct format, the final result might end up with an unnecessary
bigger file, a very bad quality file, or even a non-working video file.
You can
play any video regardless of
the video format and file
size. Orblive
and Air Video are the best iPhone video applications that do this type
of on the fly conversion.
The
conversion happens in real time
to the H.264 format supported
by the
iPhone.
It uses the power of your desktop computer to convert
the video
file.
This is simply the best method
to play
your video on your iPhone. You don’t have to worry about space on your
computer or on your iPhone. You will be playing the original video file
stored on your
desktop computer.
6- Use mobile safari web apps to watch video:
Many of the videos on the internet could be accessed simply by using
MobileSafari and
visiting the url of many video
sharing
websites. This interface is usually called a web app.
For example, if
you go to YouTube.com using
mobile safari, you can watch the YouTube
videos without running the YouTube
app. The website will switch to the
mobile version which would look much like the native YouTube app.
The same thing happens if you go to break.com.
You will be directed to the mobileversion of the
website, which looks
just like a full native application
for the iPhone. Then you can play
iPhone videos normally as if
you were running a native app.
There
are many web apps that allow you to watch video online. I will list a
few that will keep you busy for a long time.
Just enter the below url’s
into your Mobile Safari in
your iPhone and enjoy:
Break.com
metacafe.com
blip.com
clipfish.com
iphone.dailymotion.com
veoh.com
home.disney.go.com (visit the video category for some Disney TV shows,
music, and movies.
eonline.com (go to the video tab)
beam.tv
revision3.com
iphone.foxnews.com/ (in Media there are lots of free videos)
iphone.koreus.com
mywaves.com
This is my favorite method of playing iPhone
video.
It simply works by Installing an iPhone video 
The same thing happens if you go to break.com.
You will be directed to the 
