How to > Is it time to watch 1080p videos on smartphones?

Is it time to watch 1080p videos on smartphones?

1080p for smartphone
Since the release of iPhone 4, more and more high-end smartphones come up with support for 720p video playback. That evolution continues in 2011, and is now moving from 720p to 1080p. The LG Optimus 2X comes with 1080p HD video playback and recording, and can connect to an external display using HDMI, which is also expected to be a more common feature by the end of 2011. It seems that everything’s ready for playing 1080p videos on smartphones.

However, the fact is that we put 1080p videos to smartphone only to find it plays in slow motion and with much noise. Is it 1080p too good for Android smartphones to play? Probably it is. But I found that my Google Nexus S plays a few of 1080p video files without problem, and these videos are H.264 MP4 videos encoded with a bitrate of 2000kpbs. Then I noticed that all my 1080p or 720p videos that can’t be play properly share something in common- all are of high bitrate, most 6000kpbs and above. So I converted 1080p videos to 720p and reduce video bitrate to 2000kpbs and this time the Nexus S plays the movies without hassle. Here’s what I did.

Trans-coding tool: Pavtube Video Converter
You may download a trial from here. Note that a trail puts a watermark on converted videos.

Step 1. Load 1080p video to Pavtube Video Converter.
Either click “Add” to load movie from specified location, or drag and drop a movie to “Getting Started” area.

play 1080p on smartphone

Step 2. Choose a format for down-converting 1080p videos.
Click on the “Format” bar to choose a format to encode 1080p videos. Here I select “iPhone”>> “iPone 4 H.264 720P (*.mp4). When this format is selected, the software would converts 1080p videos to 720p and cut down bitrate to 1200kpbs. The file size is greatly reduced but the videos still plays stunning picture on my smartphone.

watch 1080p on smartphone

Step 3. Convert 1080p videos to 720p for smartphones.
Press “Convert” to start encoding 1080p videos to 720p for smartphones. As I tested, it takes about 20 minutest to convert 1 hour long videos on my Dual core 2G RAM desktop computer.

Why convert 1080p to 720p video for Android/iOS 4 phones
To fully enjoy the 1080p video effects, it requires for a display that has a native resolution of 1080p. Full HD 1080p video will be downscaled to the native display resolution when playing HD contents on smartphones. For the time being, the maximum screen display resolution is 960*640 (Apple’s iPhone 4), and most Andriod smartphones features a screen display of 800*480. In that case, 1270*720 is good enough for watching movies on smartphones. To enjoy 1080p contents with best effect, try connecting your smartphone to HDTV via HDMI cable (HDMI 1.3 and above is required for delivering Full HD 1080p contents).

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