How to Encode Video for All Your Mobile Devices

How to Encode Video for All Your Mobile Devices With H.264 solidly planted as the codec of choice for just about every mobile device, we've come to a point where you can encode a video once and play it back on pretty much anything. Here's how.

Web service Zencoder provides webapps with a third-party tool for encoding video, but the Zencoder Blog helpfully offers up their go-to profile for encoding video for the widest device support and high-quality standards (which you can apply to your preferred encoding tool). Here's their universal smartphone profile:

audio_bitrate: 128 (or less)
audio_sample_rate: 44100 (or less)
size: 480×320
max_framerate: 30
video_bitrate: 1500 (or less)

That profile is designed to work on a long list of devices, such as nearly every Apple device since the iPod 5.5G, several Blackberry phones, every Android phone, newer PSPs, and a few more for good measure.

Zencoder also offers up a number of other variations on the profile to offer support for legacy devices and increase or decrease resolution.

If you want to give these a try and are looking for a great, free, cross-platform encoder, be sure to download Handbrake.