There are different ways to add video to iPhone 5 for viewing. From the iPhone 5′s tech specs page, we can learn that iPhone 5 supports the following video formats:

H.264 video up to 1080p, 30 frames per second, High Profile level 4.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; MPEG-4 video up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps per channel, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats; Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

In this post, I’d like to show 5 ways of adding video to iPhone 5 and playing video on iPhone 5.

Rent or purchase videos from iTunes Store

You can use iPhone 5 to view movies, music videos, video podcasts, and, if they’re available in your area, TV shows.

You can rent or purchase videos from the iTunes Store, and you can use a video adapter cable to watch videos on a TV or projector. If you have an Apple TV, you can use AirPlay to watch the videos wirelessly on a TV.

If you get videos downloaded from iTunes Store on your computer, you need to transfer them to your iPhone 5 through the sync of iTunes.

MP4/MOV/M4V videos saved in your computer

Apart from iTunes Store, you can also transfer MP4/MOV/M4V video files stored in your PC to iPhone 5 for playing.

You can choose to sync MP4/MOV/M4V video files to iPhone 5 with iTunes or sync MP4/MOV/M4V video files to iPhone 5 without iTunes.

Incompatible videos saved to your computer

For the video files incompatible with iPhone 5, you can still get them transferred to your device. What you only need is an additional video conversion process.

The Video Converter App is available for Windows, Mac and iOS users. You can get it to help you get the unsupported video files converted to iPhone 5 supported video files.

How to convert video on iPhone 5
How to convert video to iPhone 5 video on Windows
How to convert video to iPhone 5 video on Mac

YouTube video

You can also download videos from YouTube and then transfer them to iPhone 5 for playback. The Video Converter App (Windows or Mac) also has the ability to download YouTube videos for offline enjoyment. You just copy and paste the YouTube video URL, choose MP4 as the output format, and then the online videos will be downloaded to your computer in no time. The downloaded video files are ready to be synced with iPhone 5. You can also choose to transfer them to your iPhone 5 with or without iTunes.

Free download YouTube videos (Windows)
Free download YouTube videos (Mac)

You can also download YouTube app from the iTunes App Store so as to watch YouTube videos directly on your iPhone 5.

Other online video

If you want to play videos in video sharing websites other than YouTube, you can directly visit the sites in Safari on your iPhone 5 to watch them. You can also download available apps from iTunes App Store to watch online videos on your iPhone 5.