The iPhone video player is not new to users of regular iPod devices that support video capability. The main difference is in the screen size -- which is much bigger in the iPhone, measuring 3.5 inches wide. Other functions of the player are similar to the iPod video player. You can play or you can pause video files, flip chapters forward or backward, and adjust volume.
As with any video player, picture quality is very important. The iPhone Video Player delivers a crisp 480-by-320-pixel resolution at 160 dpi.
The iPhone Video Player provides support for the display of multiple languages and characters simultaneously. No encoding changes are necessary when viewing pages in different languages (unlike standard web browsers that require adjustment of page encoding via tools and options).
The iPhone Video Player can play following file formats:
H.264 video format - It is also known as MPEG-4 Part 10 or Advanced Video Coding. The main objective behind creating this type of video format was to create a good video quality standard at substantially lower bit rates (bit rate being the number of bits that are processed per unit of time. To put it simply, the higher the rate, the better the quality of the video streaming.)The H.264 format allows up to 1.5 Mbps with a screen resolution of 640 by 480 pixels and a 30 frames per second rate. Audio is delivered in the AAC-LC (160 Kbps) audio format in .mp4, .m4v, and .mov file extensions.
MPEG-4 video format – This format absorbs many of the features of MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 standards, adding new features such as support for 3D rendering. MPEG-4 allows up to 2.5 Mbps with 640 by 480 pixels resolution and 30 frames per second. Audio is provided with AAC-LC (160 Kbps), with stereo audio in .mp4, .m4v, and .mov file extensions.
iPhone Video Player allows users to zoom up or down in the window playing the video file. In order to do so, all that is required is a gentle double-tap on the screen. The video file is stored on the internal hard drive; if space becomes limited, users may simply delete video files from their iPhone to free memory. However, the video is still attached to iTunes account, and can be restored to the iPhone using the iTunes application.