The last time I looked, Apple had already sold over six million iPhones after just 13 months since its initial launch. I don’t think that there have been six million extra standard computers sold (desktops and laptops) in the past year, compared to prior years’ sales. As a result, I conclude that mobile handheld communication devices [like the iPhone (plus the iPod Touch, Blackberry, Treo, and some others)] represent the fastest-growing segment of Internauts (Internet users).
Increasingly, I find myself having to warn my friends and clients against using Flash for their website and web video, since Flash is simply not playable on the most popular mobile handheld devices. (There are some handheld devices that play Flash as Adobe quickly points out, but I said “most popular”!) The formats that the popular handheld mobile devices play well are HTML, animated GIF, and H.264. Many graphic designers are so into the Flash rage, they attempt to minimize this vital and practical issue, in the hope that someday Flash might play on the most popular mobile handheld devices. I don’t know about you, but my clients and I need to communicate, sell, and eat today, not someday. We can’t afford to prevent over six million Internauts from seeing our content by making the wrong decision.
Top of the line article. Very intresting information.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 09/30 at 02:44 PM
Thanks for the great article.
Long story short, I have a Quicktime file that I’m very happy with. Looks great, plays smoothly. It’s an H.264 .mov file that’s about 1500kbps bitrate. The size is 640x360.
After reading your article. I want to make this file an mp4.
Following your directions, I’m using Compressor to re-encode my master file into a mp4.
My question is:
How do I make an MP4 file that looks just as good as my H.264 encoded, beauty of a Quicktime file that I described above?
In Compressor 3, when I change the file type to “H.264 for Apple Devices” all of my compression options change. Certain options are greyed out, certain options just don’t exist. I can set the bitrate to approximately be the same as I did with my Quicktime beauty, but other options just aren’t available.
What this means is a compromise in quality. When I compare my original MOV h.264 file (described above) to the “h.264 for Apple Devices” (iPod / iPhone VGA setting, with mp4 typed in as the file extension), it seems that the mp4 is brighter, shows more blocky pixel artifacts, and the color appears less smooth than with the mov file.
Just for reference, both the mov file and the mp4 file are the same size….and both are encoded with H.264.
So my question is: how do I make an mp4 that looks just as good as an mov? Or, does the mp4 format mean a slight compromise in quality?
Thanks for you help and for the great article.
David
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 10/05 at 12:15 PM
I had a similar problem, and another problem when I started down the path of mp4 web delivery. I’m using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, and the Adobe Media Encoder.
My video is widescreen, but when I create the iphone compatible h.264 the preset forces it to be 4:3. When I changed the encoding, the file it generated won’t play properly (it gets random pixels on the right side of the image).
A bigger problem is this: I’d like to have the h.264 mp4 file for download on the website (for iphoners) and then also stream within flash player. The problem(s) are:
1) flash player requires that I download the whole video before playback begins. Supposedly you can run a utility on the file to move the headers to the start of the file, which should fix this, but hasn’t worked yet for me.
2) seek within a file only works with a custom lightpd plugin, which I can’t run with a normal ‘shared’ hosting plan, or even with most of the VPS (virtual private server) hosting packages out there.
So now I’m back to creating an h.264 mp4 file for iphones, and an FLV for flash player.
Frustrating. Any ideas or success stories would be welcome.
Posted by Tom Frisch on 11/03 at 05:14 PM
David and Tom,
The answers you need are at the end of my DVKitchen article. You will find it here at ProVideo Coaliton, if not on the front page, in the TecnoTur channel.
Allan Tépper
Posted by Allan Tépper on 03/20 at 06:55 AM
Apple Quicktime is far from be an accepted application in our Windows world, so H.264 is not a good solution to use embedded in webpages. Flash plugin is more accepted, small and simple to install. I love H.264, but until Windows Media Player play those files simple and easily, doesnt seem reasonable warn your friends and clients against using Flash.
Posted by Rafael Perez on 04/28 at 06:59 PM
The formats that the popular handheld mobile devices play well are HTML, animated GIF, and H.264. Many graphic designers are so into the Flash rage, they attempt to minimize this vital and practical issue, in the hope that someday Flash might play on the most popular mobile handheld devices…..
Posted by casino de jeux on 08/25 at 11:39 PM
The article has flaws. there is no technological reason NOT to include flash, in terms of apples safari interface on smart phones and iPads. i work for apple, btw. now, i know the Processor will burn more battery power, but that is up to user discretion. i dont understand why apple has to play such hard ball with its competitors.
there is a great SWF to MOV H264 converter that i recommend. it is part of a reasonably priced HTML editor / web dev tool. It doesnt just do code.. it does some great stuff with images.
here it is:
http://www.softpress.com/
and by the way, Flash was the FIRST major product that i know to have 3G emulators. That was when DoCoMo took off in Japan and was piloted in Holland.. That is over 5 years ago.. so Flash HAS BEEN a product doing everything possible to build a dev platform for a plethora of multimedia devices. It is hardly the 6M internet users on apple devices that is to be at fault for driving us away from flash.. it has to do w apple business strategy. lets call it right and put pressure on the people narrowing the creative-competitive marketplace..
Posted by sverko on 05/19 at 10:13 PM
iPhone has really taken the world by storm. It’s no surprise because this one has already made promising results despite of the controversies it has faced since it has been inside the market. and until now it has been a star among the tech followers.
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/15 at 11:42 PM
