If you have video files you’d like to watch on your iPhone but they don’t seem to copy into the iTunes library, it is probably because they are the wrong format.

The iPhone only accepts audio and video files in these three formats: AAC, MP3 and M4A.

Most videos and film clips that are downloaded from the internet are in .MOV, .AVI, .MPEG, .MPG formats. If this is the case with your files you will need a video to iPhone converter.

There are many places to find video to iPhone converters. Each works in a very similar way: select the video files you wish to convert to iPhone format and allow it to work its magic. If you are converting videos ensure you select the .M4A format to convert to.

Once the files have been converted, you can fire up iTunes and attempt to add the newly created files to your iTunes library. They should automatically be recognised as video files and live in the “Movies” category. You can then drag the video files to your iPhone if you manually manage it, or hit the sync button to flash them to the iPhone.

It is worth noting that movie files that have been downloaded from P2P networks such as LimeWire or Torrent websites breach video piracy laws and can elicit hefty fines.