How To Distribute Your Videos To the Apple iPad

I said it before - the Apple iPad is going to be a HUGE new opportunity to use video to market yourself or your organization. Yesterday I went into my local Apple store to research just how we can get our videos onto this device. Here is some of what I found:

1. Distributing Your Video As a Video Podcast
This is probably the most straightforward way to go about getting your video on the iPad, particularly if you plan on releasing multiple videos over time.

You will want to make sure, however, that you take special care to encode your video for viewing on the iPad otherwise it won't display or play on your iPad. Here is what Apple says you must do (and I apologize in advance for the geekiness of what you are about to read):

Compression: H.264
File Format: m4v, .mp4 or .mov
Resolution: "up to" 720p
Frame Rate: 30 frames per second
Sound: Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo

OR

Compression: MPEG-4
File Format: .m4v, .mp4, or .mov file formats;
Data Rate: up to 2.5 Mbps
Resolution: 640 by 480
Frame Rate: 30 frames per second
Sound: Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio

OR

Compression: Motion JPEG (M-JPEG)
File Format: .avi
Data Rate: up to 35 Mbps
Resolution: 1280 by 720 pixels
Frame Rate: 30 frames per second
Sound: ulaw, PCM stereo

The Apple iPad's screen's aspect ratio isn't the widescreen 16:9 standard as you might expect but rather a more boxy 4:3 (1024x768.) Notice that although the screen technically can handle videos up to 768 pixels tall but going over 720 pixels isn't allowed if you look at the video formatting specifications above.

So once you have your videos properly encoded you will want to upload them to iTunes as a video podcast and then wait a couple of days for Apple to add your content to their iTunes store area. From there people will be able to subscribe to your video podcast and from then on the videos will be automatically downloaded to their iPad each time you put out new content.

2) Hosting and Embedding Your Own Video Into Your Web Site or Blog For Viewing on the iPad

This is also possible however tread very carefully.

First, you have to make sure you are not utilizing a Flash player or Flash video (.flv or .swf) on your site because the iPad doesn't support Flash. Your Web designer (or if that's you, then "you") will have to follow the new HTML5 specifications for display of video OR embed a Quicktime player on your Web site with a video matching the specifications I shared earlier.

There are a lot of issues with using HTML5 right now when it comes to video. For one thing, the standard has not yet been finalized and so no decision has been reached on what video formats will be supported. In addition, only the newest Web browsers understand HTML5 at all.

You can read all about the ongoing drama of HTML5 on Wikipedia.

For all these reasons, right now I suggest you plan on utilizing a Quicktime player on your site if you plan on self-hosting. Just a quick caution: from my experience, Quicktime freaks out if you have more than one video player on a page. The Web browser will try and download ALL the videos on the page at ONCE instead of only downloading the one video you actually want to see and then only after you click on the play button.

3) Use a Free iPhone or iPad Hosting Service to Embed Your Video

The easiest solution is to upload your video to a site like YouTube or Blip.tv first and then use the embed code they provide to place the video on your site. I would still make sure my video is formatted using one of the specifications above and then double check to follow whatever instructions YouTube or Blip.tv provides for ensuring iPhone or iPad compatibility.

4) The Wordpress Solution

I've recently converted my entire site over to a Wordpress blog. One of the main reasons for doing this is I wanted to make sure my videos were viewable on the iPhone and now the iPad. So I purchased a Wordpress theme template from Graph Paper Press called "On Assignment" which now automatically ensures that the videos you upload can be viewed on the iPhone/iPad.

So I am currently self-hosting my videos in large part. I know Graph Paper Press templates also support using sites like YouTube or Blip.tv to host your videos externally but I am checking now to see if you can still take advantage of the iPhone/iPad support if you do that.

Summary

The opportunity of having your videos viewable on the iPad are just too good to pass up but you will have to take special care in how you film, compress and distribute your videos in order to take advantage of it.

There's clearly a lot more to this topic, we've only just scratched the surface and, frankly, I don't have all the answers either so we'll all learn together.