Export MP4 movie from Premiere and won't play in Iphone

[fernando alves]

Hi,

There is this problem now. It never happened before. So, I export a .mp4 movie and it doesn't play in my or my friends Iphone. It play in Samsung phones. Weird, isn't? My export setup is:

Format: H.264

Preset: Match Source- Medium Bitrate

I am exporting a vertical video to Instagram width:1080 height:1920

I have plenty space in my Iphone. I have update my Premiere a few days ago. I ma using now the last version 13.03 (build 9). What am I doing wrong? Or is there a bug in this version??

My workflow to be able to upload a video in the I phone is that:

Export with that setup I describe above and then import it to MPEG Streamclip and set my export to MPG4. Doing that I am able to upload my videos to any Iphone.

Anybody ever have this problem?

Thanks a lot,

Fernando Alves

[jonathanbyrdmusic]

Same. Did it many times before, printed an mp4 from premier to my hard drive, airdropped it to my iphone, uploaded to instagram. No problem. Suddenly, I can't airdrop it anymore. The iPhone won't accept it. It will save to my iCloud drive but it won't play from there. Dropbox too. And there's no way to get it to instagram. Not even from Dropbox. It won't load. Is this because of the latest iphone update? I'm using a 7 btw

[challen_brown]

We are having the same issue. This never used to be a problem until the last few months. Any help?

[katerinavahalova]

Exactly the same problem here.

Anyone got a solution?

[challen_brown]

We ended up finding this video, downloading his presets and it worked! 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC7w29K0M54

[BL1834]

I'd love to know more about why these particular presets fixed the issue, because I am currently having this same issue except with After Effects (and exporting from After Effects using Media Encoder). I just posted more details in another forum, but I'll share here just in case someone finds them helpful in some way (?):

1) I am exporting a composition from After Effects using Adobe Media Encoder. I am exporting it as an H.264 / mp4.

2) The exported video file plays fine on my Macbook. 

3) I try to Airdrop the file to my iPhone, and I receive the error message "Failed to save item. Save to iCloud Drive instead?". However, saving the file to iCould Drive doesn't fix the problem, either. 

4) I've tried to avoid Airdrop by saving the exported file to a shared file service such as my Dropbox. However, when I try to download the file from my Dropbox to my phone, I receive the same error message. 

I'm starting to think that either Adobe or Apple has recently introduced an update that is causing this conflict. I have not changed anything about my workflow. This same process of exporting and Airdropping video to my iPhone has worked perfectly for the past 2 years. 

Here is a weird (not really practical) workaround I found after further experimenting:

After exporting a compostion from After Effects, I opened it on my Macbook using Quicktime. In Quicktime, I clicked Export As > 1080p, and in the following 'Save as' screen, there was a box that was pre-checked labeled "Use HEVC". I *unchecked* this box, and after exporting the file from Quicktime in this manner, I was able to transfer it successfully to my iPhone and play it. 

Note that I attempted this same process in Quicktime, but selected '4k' instead of '1080p', and it did *not* play on iPhone.

So perhaps the problem has to do with whatever HEVC is? I hope this is fixed soon. I don't want to have to run files through several different exports just to make them play on iPhone lol 

[alliek26568688]

I tried doing this but the HVEC box wasnt even checked, thus im still stuck with the same problem. Also I am hesitant to download that guys presets because i work with analog super 8 film and so the sizing of my video frames are unique and have to be a custom size.

[Mjanz]

I'm not sure if anyone is still having this issue; however I was having issues when exporting (as everyone mentioned above) and exporting to my iPhone. I kept getting the error message "Failed to save item. Save to iCloud Drive instead." The recommended trick above to export from Quicktime worked, however it diminished the video quality a bit (for me at least).

I was able to find a fix that may work for others; I changed my export settings to (HEVC H.256) and was able to export my video to my iPhone without hindering the quality. Hope this helps someone out there. Surprised Adobe hasn't done anything to fix this issue yet -- there are numerous threads on this same issue for over a year...

[BL1834]

Thanks for sharing! I will try this on my next project ASAP. Do you happen to know if HEVC H.256 causes any conflicts elsewhere? I am still learning about file types and what works best on which devices.

[Nickgetek]

This worked for me! Saved me a lot of time and frustration. Thank you!

[Morten0D4D]

YES, THANK YOU! 

The HEVC(H.265) worked for me .

[Unnax]

Thank you!!!!  after trying so many things this worked for me!! Thank you for sharing 🙂 

[DrBK Marketing]

Life saver - thank you!

[Gus__]

HVEC worked for me!! Same problem, opening the video on PC but not in Iphone, mp4. 1080x1920

[jasont75041003]

I used the HVEC work around and it worked up until today when i started getting the cannot save to file error again. 

[eatmush]

Hi! I posted my solution on this thread. Try it out and tell me if it works please! 😉

[fugzo]

Agreed and howcome it only happens to us?

[vijay a human]

This helped a lot. Big thanks! Worked in an instant!

[Matias Melo]

Thanks you!

[MG_Sean]

It's 2023 and this is still the best resolution to the issue of saving a premiere pro video into the Photos app. Can someone please tag this as the solution?

[juliam43410775]

I saw his video and opted for another one.. thanks for this @challen_brown !  Will try now!!

Julia 🙂

[eatmush]

I was having this same issue here. After doing some tests, this SOLVED my problem:

Sequence Settings > Video 'tab' > Fields: select 'No Fields (Progressive Scan)'

Before making this change, my 'Fields' option was selected as 'Upper Field First'.

[Digital1834]

Interesting, thanks for sharing! Will try ASAP. Do you happen to know whether changing this setting will have any other effects on your video? (I'm not 100% certain what this setting is for in the first place, ha) 

[eatmush]

I also have no clue what this setting is about! But I noticed some of my projects (which were exporting just fine) were set as such...

[Marketing Hudson]

It worked. After tried many ways, your tips were very helpfull. Thanks!