iPhone 3Gs Can Play 720p and 1080p HD Movies?

Yes yes, i know that you’ve heard about it right before the iPhone 3Gs was released, but those was just rumors. Rumors that quickly become our dreams, and like every wet dream, Apple managed to kill it. Yes they did, but they probably had a damn good reason for it: either preserving the battery life or keep iPhone’s functionality more consistent .

In the weiphone’s forum ( chinese ) a user managed to get full-HD videos using the AppStore application FileAid to the device and then transferred to the iPhone video player: ( english translation )

3GS listed at the beginning of time, from the dismantling of some people come to the conclusion that 3GS Samsung chips used in the official indicators are to support the 720P video processing, but Apple 3GS calibration of video playback is still the same as the previous generation to support the 2.5M highest rate of Mpeg 4 or H264 video, this standard is adopted from the iPod Video has been down, may be the Apple portable devices in a unified format so the video has not been upgraded, but also in terms of small-screen video also 2.5Mbps indeed have been able to watch the quality assurance, in fact, if we use iTunes built-in video format conversion of video to generate only about 1.6M bit-rate, but also basic enough to read.

However, this analysis of it, since from the iPod to the iPhone, from 3G to 3GS, the performance of the machine has been upgraded, and that the video playback 3GS capacity should be higher than the standard Apple used for many years. Therefore, in order to test the built-3GS about the ultimate player, video player, and I spent time in one evening a number of tests, the results far beyond what I expected.

First of all, I used a 3M-hand the current rate of 960 * 540 of the MP4 files, try the next player will not be any problems, then I direct 720P, using the Sanyo HD1000 High Definition DV home generated 1280 * 720 * 30p video, H264 encoding bit rate to achieve about 12M, have been definitely thinking about it too much under the iPhone, resulting in unexpected, playback is still a problem, a little voice did not lag or frame-skipping. In that case, this DV-hand there are those who Sanyo on more than a play, you can play with it a direct iPhone 3GS take out the documents without the need to code (the general home DV HD AVCHD format are used, and the iPhone built-in players do not support the playback of this format, it would not be useful to the suffix).

12M since the 720P there is no problem, then I would try a few of the HD using iTunes to download the Podcast, bit-rate between the 3M-6M, size is 1280 * 720,24 P or 25P, these documents do not prompt in iTunes iPhone support was the need to convert the format after the iPhone to iTunes before the upload, but the fact that the direct use of 3GS players are not the problem, the excellent picture quality, I do not know the future of iTunes be able to relax the restrictions on iPhone.

iTunes to download the Podcast, in HD featured Video, the name is Insect frenzy in Ndumo, 4.5M rate 720P Main@L3.1

Did not expect so smooth, so I will test again 1080P next step, or step-by-step:
The first test is carried over a period of HD100 shot with Canon’s high-definition video, encoded with H264 (AVC), 1440 * 1080 * 25P, I control the rate 8M, successfully passed the test.
The second test, I take it from “non-interference not sincere” 1080P version of the 2 cut-off period and a half minutes, coding is still used AVC, up to 1920 resolution, bit rate up to 10M, the test.

10M bit-rate “non-interference not sincere”

Third, the movie “Christmas window” 1080P section, bit rate up to 15M, through.
Fourth, the movie “desperate induction” 1080P section, bit-rate 20M, through.
The fifth, or “desperate induction” section of the same, bit-rate 25M, still passed.

To now I do not believe in myself a bit, 1920 * 1080P HD, 25M bit-rate of H264 together with 3GS player that also has not, this video of some old computer software solutions for the relatively difficult, and the Internet Basically, if this should be annihilated, except with hardware decoding.

Finally, I repeated what I wanted to use video to test two, respectively, into 35M, 37M, 40M, 45M and 50M bit-rate used in this 5 years, respectively, 3GS player, the ultimate “Christmas rear window” that period in the bit rate of 40M voice lag time there, and “desperate induction” This section of the 45M bit-rate to achieve a more prominent when they are not the picture of the phenomenon of synchronization, and 50M is the hand I AVC encoder bit-rate limit in the baseliine@L4.1 .

Last two test High@L4.1 the 1080P, 7M variable bit-rate of the “coming Son” is from the line of thought on the MKV directly extracted to re-package, but also their own to a constant bit rate of 35M “Xmen trailer”, the player with no problem also. Also found in the test 3GS more than 5 does not support profile, players will start on fixed stuck, while the audio must be dual-channel LC AAC format does not support multi-channel AC3/DTS or settings.

7M rate (14M peak), “Son come” 1920X1080 High@L4.1

35M bit-rate “X-Men” 1920X1080 High@L4.1

So the final result is built-3GS player smooth playback up to more than 30M bit-rate, 1920 * 1080P the H264 video, profile support to High@L4.1, although this conclusion seems a bit mind-boggling.

35M bit-rate “Christmas rear window”

As a comparison, 40M bit-rate of the H264 file in my books if it is a soft solution, CPU occupancy rate of 40% from top to bottom, the screen quickly changes to 60% when more than my books is configured T9300 (Dual-Core 2.5 G, 6M cache) + Nvidia 8600M GT/512M + 4G DDR2, decoder uses CoreAVC. And another with my old books (Dothen 2G monocyte +1 G memory 2M cache + ATI M9700, does not support hardware solution), 10M bit-rate second CPU test paper to achieve an average occupancy rate around 90 percent, jumping from time to time frame, 15M bit rate has dropped frames can not be serious watch.

Finally, let me talk about testing, I did not escape the machine, we can only use the software in the app store, I used a few days ago saw in another post the fileaid, can be transmitted directly to the video files on the iPhone , call the built-in player, any document can be mass, thus not subject to the restrictions on iTunes bit rate, but the import of the document can only be seen fileaid and management, can not be imported into iPod playlist. Some friends from iPhone If you need to watch with non-standard rate of MP4, the software could be considered.

The list of files FileAid

Introduction FileAid File Transfer

3G and Touch on the ability of the players, I believe that certain provisions than the value of Apple is much higher, conditional friends who are interested to test and make a comparison 3GS.