MOV Not Playing on iPhone? Best Approach to Convert MOV to iPhone for Smooth Playback

It's weird that why the MOV files are rejected by iPhone and can't open on iPhone. After all, Apple MOV is the format that iPhone natively supports. That being said, there are exceptions to everything. Some MOV files won't open or play on iPhone partly because:

1. Codecs are to be blamed: MOV, as a container file format, can be encoded by MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2, H263, H264, HEVC, Apple ProRes, DV, Sorenson Video 2 and more. Yes, most of MOV videos can be imported to QuickTime player for playback or iMovie for editing. But as for iPhone, it's a different story. Generally, it's a no brainer for iPhone to deal with MOV videos with H264, MPEG-4 or HEVC codecs. But when it comes to MOV files with MPEG-2, H263, H261, etc. codecs, the chance of playback failure is raised up to almost 100%.

2. Improper parameter settings: the chance for your iPhone to read and playback the MOV files narrows down to zero if the parameter settings of MOV files are mismatched with your iPhone device, including variable frame rate, variable bit rate, resolution, etc.

3. Problematic MOV file source: If the MOV videos you get come from the unsafe download sites or are editted by some video editors, they might get damaged or corrupted partly or wholly. Therefore, it's no wonder that your iPhone can't open or playback MOV footages.

To solve the "MOV video won't open/play on iPhone" issue, one way is to ditch away the problematic MOV files and regain a sound MOV video. As for other MOV videos with wrong codec & parameters, you're highly suggested to convert MOV video to iPhone format with best settings.

Smart Approach to Convert MOV to iPhone Best Format

To transcode MOV to iPhone video with best parameter settings, you have more than one option. Online video conversion site enables you to decode MOV video but they doesn't allow you to adjust video parameter settings. Free video transcoder apps can do the MOV to iPhone format conversion, but it comes at the cost of quality loss. In a bid to get the output video with possibly best result, you can give a shot on VideoProc - the professional iPhone video processing software well-designed to losslessly decode MOV video to iPhone supported MP4/MOV/M4V format with H264/MPEG-4/HEVC codecs. What's plus, it can:

1. Change MOV to iPhone compatible variable bit rate, variable frame rate (30FPS-240FPS), adjust aspect ratio from 1:1, 2:1, 4:3 to 16:9 and tweak resolution.

2. Cut off the damaged/corrupted clips from MOV video to ensure a smooth playback on iPhone.

3. Directly convert MOV video to iPhone Xs Max, iPhone Xs/R, iPhone X/8/7/6s/6/Plus, iPhone SE, etc. preset profiles with optimal parameter settings.

4. Safely download intact MOV videos, movies, music from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Vimeo, Dailymotion, etc. 1000+ sites to iPhone for legal usage.

How to Decode and Process MOV to iPhone

Step 1: Load MOV Footage

Run this brilliant iPhone video converter on your macOS or Windows after the downloading and installation are finished. Click Video on the home screen to activate the video conversion window, where hit "+Video" button to import your MOV files. Bulk conversion is supported via multiple loading or "Video Folder".

Step 2: Choose MP4 or iPhone Profile.

Move your mouse to the bottom of the interface, where you can tap "Video" > choose "MP4 H264" or "MOV H264" as output formats. Alternatively, find "iPhone H264" profile under "Device" subcategory.

To play MOV video on a specific iPhone, hit "Target Format" > press "Apple Device" under "Mobile Video Profile" on the pop-up output profile window > click "to iPhone Video" > opt for "iPhone Xs/Max, XR (H264)" or other iPhone models at your willing.

Note 1: the pre-programmed profile actually has done everything for you with optimum video settings for your iPhone video playback. Hence, you don't have to manually adjust any video parameter especially if you're a rookie. Certainly, in case you do have special needs in parameter settings, go to the video info bar > find video settings icon labelled with "Codec Option" > tap it and then you're free to upscale/downscale video resolution, lower frame rate 240FPS to 120FPS, 60FPS to 30FPS, change bit rate from ABR to CBR or CBR to VBR and adjust playback aspect ratio, etc.

Note 2: it won't cost you much time if your MOV video length is just several minutes. But if your input source is up to 2hrs or 6 hrs, you must care video conversion speed a lot. Luckily, this iPhone video processing toolbox features the advanced GPU Nvidia/Intel/AMD hardware acceleration techs to hand over the compute-intensive video processing task from CPU to the expert GPU, which delivers you 5X faster speed than any other tools and also easily fixes your CPU overheating or CPU 90% overusage problems.

Of course, any video converter is essentially useless if it ignores the output quality. This program considers what you consider, with "Use High Quality Engine", "Deinterlacing" and constantly optimized conversion algorithm, which guarantess you an output video file with 98% quality kept. You can enable "Auto Copy" mode for MOV to MP4 or iPhone 1:1 video copy if both the input and output have the same H264 codec.

Step 3: Cut off the Damaged Parts from MOV Video.

Tap "Cut" with a scissor-shaped icon >drag the green knob to set up the video start time and end time > click the orange button with a Cut word > hit "Done".

Step 4: Start Converting MOV to iPhone.

Click Browse to specify the target folder for output file storage and press RUN to begin decoding MOV and process MOV video to iPhone format (MP4/MOV/M4V H264/HEVC) with quality and speed well balanced.