iPhone Video Consolidation Project--file extensions, quality, and styles

[ericinboston]

Hi all. My wife asked me to collect all the videos from our various iPhones that have been in use the past 8 years. Over those 8 years, I have connected the older iPhones to my Windows machine and was able to copy all the videos off them. But in recent years (or iOS 12 and slightly lower) Apple has made it next to impossible to copy the videos off the iPhone onto Windows.

Therefore, we each signed up for iCloud accounts for our 2 current iPhones (7Plus and 8Plus) which are running iOS 12.x and 13.x and again, we've had them for a few years so older iOSs surely were present on them. When I copy all the videos up to the 2 iCloud accounts and then download them, after unzipping the giant file I noticed there are 3 types of video files (notice the case):

.mov
.MOV
.MP4

Questions:

1)From what I can gather, the .MOV files are not always from the native device. Meaning, if I downloaded a .MOV file from my wife's iCloud account, that file MAY have been created on her iPhone (sent to her from a friend via iMessage or email). I have found a few MOV files on her iCloud download that were from recorded from my iPhone.

2)The .mov files seem to have come from someone else's iPhone 11 via text or email. Only the iPhone 11 series. But is the case change the only thing that has changed (to allow my eyes to notice it is an iPhone 11 recording) or did it get compressed worse?

3)The .MP4 files seem to be generated from some kind of trimming. However, we ONLY use iPhones for video recording. If I look at the property info for a .MP4 file, it fails to show what iPhone and iOS created it. But I know it was an iPhone. See below for examples of .MP4 vs. .MOV file properties. When you send an iMessage with a trimmed video does iOS always send it in .MP4 format?

4)I thought when you shared a video over iMessage, it retained 100% full quality. Am I wrong or are there limitations?


My main concern is trying to find out what the difference is about the 3 file types so I can quickly sort which videos may have come via Text or iMessage and possibly be less quality...I may have a duplicate in a different format that has better quality.

Thank you so much!


.MP4 file properties

General
Complete name : M:\Carol Video Project Final Folder\Carol iCloud Videos\IMG_7619 Cecelia showing Jean sewing.MP4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2
Codec ID : mp42 (isom/mp41/mp42)
File size : 4.13 MiB
Duration : 9 s 633 ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 3 599 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2020-09-09 09:53:27
Tagged date : UTC 2020-09-09 09:53:30

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, RefFrames : 2 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 9 s 633 ms
Bit rate : 3 498 kb/s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Rotation : 90°
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.127
Stream size : 4.02 MiB (97%)
Title : Core Media Video
Encoded date : UTC 2020-09-09 09:53:27
Tagged date : UTC 2020-09-09 09:53:30
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 9 s 630 ms
Source duration : 9 s 683 ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 96.0 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel(s)_Original : 1 channel
Channel positions : Front: C
Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate : 43.066 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 112 KiB (3%)
Source stream size : 112 KiB (3%)
Title : Core Media Audio
Encoded date : UTC 2020-09-09 09:53:27
Tagged date : UTC 2020-09-09 09:53:30



.MOV file properties


General
Complete name : M:\Carol Video Project Final Folder\Carol iCloud Videos\IMG_7900 dog sledding.MOV
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : QuickTime
Codec ID : qt 0000.00 (qt )
File size : 3.64 MiB
Duration : 37 s 592 ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 813 kb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2019-02-17 19:01:29
Tagged date : UTC 2019-02-17 19:01:32
Writing library : Apple QuickTime
com.apple.quicktime.location.I : +43.3963-072.3969+091.393/
com.apple.quicktime.make : Apple
com.apple.quicktime.model : iPhone 8 Plus
com.apple.quicktime.software : 11.4
com.apple.quicktime.creationda : 2019-02-17T13:45:21-0500

Video
ID : 2
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : Baseline@L3
Format settings, CABAC : No
Format settings, RefFrames : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP : M=1, N=15
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 37 s 592 ms
Bit rate : 709 kb/s
Width : 568 pixels
Height : 320 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Minimum frame rate : 30.000 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 31.579 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.130
Stream size : 3.18 MiB (87%)
Title : Core Media Video
Encoded date : UTC 2019-02-17 19:01:29
Tagged date : UTC 2019-02-17 19:01:32
Color range : Limited
Color primaries : BT.709
Transfer characteristics : BT.709
Matrix coefficients : BT.709

Audio
ID : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile : LC
Codec ID : 40
Duration : 37 s 592 ms
Source duration : 37 s 663 ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 100 kb/s
Channel(s) : 1 channel
Channel positions : Front: C
Sampling rate : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate : 43.066 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 460 KiB (12%)
Source stream size : 460 KiB (12%)
Title : Core Media Audio
Encoded date : UTC 2019-02-17 19:01:29
Tagged date : UTC 2019-02-17 19:01:32

Other #1
Type : meta
Duration : 37 s 592 ms
Duration_FirstFrame : 11250
Duration_LastFrame : 26142
Bit rate mode : VBR

Other #2
Type : meta
Duration : 37 s 592 ms

 

[ericinboston]

It turns out I can answer at least part of #3. The iPhone has a Camera setting where you can choose between High Efficiency and Most Compatible. HE records in MP4 format and is 1/2 the size of Most Compatible (which records in MOV mode). It also appears (at least on my iPhone 7Plus) that HE records at 720 even though it is set to record at 1080.

I never set it to HE but I bet when my iPhone was running low on storage Apple conveniently and quietly switched it for me. Now that I have 90% free again (most space was used for some movies I downloaded for a long trip), I switched it back to MC and let's hope it stays this way.