I'm trying to setup a simple mobile page for a client with a link to an .mp4 video file. Lke so:
<a href="My_Video_File.mp4" target="_blank">Watch MP4 Video</a>
And then I've obviously got my video file sourced properly and the .mp4 has the following characteristics:
Dimension: 480 * 272
Codecs: AAC, H.264, MPEG-4 SDSM, MPEG-4 ODSM
Channel Count: 2
Total Bitrate: 991
Size: 11.4MB
But, the problem is when I click on the link iPhone says "Movie cannot be played." and doesn't tell me why.
Any help?
H. 264 has been around since around 2014, and has been the standard for all HD recording and playback. For iPhones 6s or newer, they support H. 264, High Profile 5.1 with AAC-LC audio.
iPhone can only recognize the file with M4V, MP4, and MOV extensions and compressed in or MPEG-4. If your MP4 file is not compressed in this way, it can't be opened or played smoothly with your iPhone. You need to convert MP4 to iPhone compatible format first.
If it is saved to your iPhone or iPad storage, tap On My iPhone/iPad. If it is saved to your iCloud drive, tap iCloud Drive. Navigate to the MP4 file. If the file is saved to a specific folder, tap that folder to view it's contents.
Your iPhone works only with . m4v, . mp4, and . mov file formats for videos.
The problem was partially to do with encoding but more to do with the dimensions.
I found out that if your .mp4 file is larger in dimension than 640*360 then the iPhone (iPad, iPod) won't even give the user the option to attempt to play it. They just get the X'd out play button icon.
Also, these devices only support .mp4's that are encoded with the baseline H.264 profile, or they can't be played.
Also, there's a bitrate limit of 1.5Mb for the iPhone, but it's suggested to keep the bitrate below 900kb.
If quality is less of a concern than size then you can use m4v's of larger dimensions but I believe the bitrate rules still apply.
You need the h254 video to be progressive not lower. Choose the H.264 preset and change the video from lower to progressive.
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