How to encode video for mobile devices (iPhone/iPad, Android, etc.) | Hacker News Reader

How to encode video for mobile devices (iPhone/iPad, Android, etc.)

zencoder.com

46 pointsjon_dahl11 comments

That's a particularly meaty blog post, for which I (a mobile developer) have used several of the configurations or very close to them when working with things, and he's spot on.

Useful info.

Anyone care to provide the corresponding ffmpeg CLI examples?

Also, iPads can go up to Baseline 3.1, 1024x768, IIRC.

It can but Apple doesn't recommend that size for "mobile" use. You can see all the Apple recommendations here: http://developer.apple.com/library/ios/technotes/tn2010/imag...

Great link. It's specifically for HTTP Streaming, so you can get away with higher quality for videos downloaded before being watched. But even for regular old HTTP Progressive Download, these guidelines are very useful.

You made my week with that link. Thank you.

I would be very surprised if all the > 3GS IOS devices couldn't handle Main 3.1 (or even High 3.1). You might be gated by iTunes from putting the bitstream on the device, but the decode hardware is almost certainly capable.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I used to work on video at Apple. No inside knowledge was used to make this post.

Care to speculate on the hardware video encoding capabilities of the capable iDevices?

Gated by the needs of FaceTime, I would suspect. 720x480 @ 30fps, baseline? H.264 is highly asymmetric, so they're not going to waste silicon on encoding hardware beyond the basics.

The title of this article is misleading. There is nothing here that says how to encode video for the mobile devices. It only contains information about the video formats that the mobile devices can accept.

It's a great post. They enumerate a dozen headaches you have to deal with and edge cases you must account for if you want video on mobile devices.

Or, you know, you could use our free one-click video transcoding service.

We need more "use our service because we save you from doing complicated X, Y, Z yourself" posts.

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