Screenshot of an iTouch with a fullscreen background.

The Info:

If you’ve ever tried to make a video background for your iPhone or iTouch, you already know its not too difficult, but its not easy. If you’ve used iMovie to make it, then you know that you can’t set a custom aspect ratio and that you will end up with a video for you background that takes up only a small part of the screen. This is because most screens, like TVs, are wider than they are tall. The iPhone in portrait mode, however, isn’t. Hopefully this guide will help you to make a video background that takes up the how iPhone screen in portrait mode.

The Requirements

1. A Mac with iMovie
2. A jailbroken iPhone or iTouch
3. WinterBoard (free download through Cydia)

The Process:

1. First thing you need to do is pick out some photos you want in your slideshow and save them in a folder that’s easy to access, like on the Desktop.
2. Select all of your photos (click one and then press CMD+A) and right-click on them, then select Open With –> Preview.app.

   

3. In Preview, click on one of the pictures in the right sidebar and the press CMD+A to select all of them.
4. Click CMD+R to rotate all of the pictures 90º clockwise.

   

5. Click File –> Save All to save all of the pictures.

   

6. Click CMD+Q to quit Preview.
7. Open iMovie and press CMD+N to create a new Project.

   

8. Give the new project a title such as “Background”.
9. Set the “Aspect Ratio” to “iPhone (3:2).
10. Check the the box next to “Automatically add” and select in the drop down box “Cross Dissolve”.

11. Right-click in the project section (the upper-left portion of the window) and select “Project Properties…”.

    

12. Select the “Timing” tab.

    

13. Set the “Transition Duration” and the “Photo Duration” to whatever you want. I usually choose 2s for the transitions and 10s for the photos.

14. Go to the folder where you saved the photos and press CMD+A to select all of them.
15. Click and drag the photos into the project section of iMovie. iMovie will automatically add transitions between the photos and Ken Burns effect to each photo.
16. At this point, you can click and drag each photo to reorder them and you can click the crop icon to change the Ken Burns effect.

17. Once you have the slideshow how you want it, click CMD+E to export it.

    

18. Select where you want to save it and give it the filename “Wallpaper”.
19. Be sure to set the “Size to Export” to “Mobile” and then click Export.

    

20. After the video finishes exporting, navigate to it in Finder and open it in QuickTime.

    

21. In QuickTime, press CMD+J to open the “Movie Properties” window.

    

22. Select the video track and then select the “Visual Settings” tab.

    

23. Click the counterclockwise button to rotate the video so that it is upright.

24. Close that window and press CMD+E to open the export window.

    

25. Next to “Export:”, select “Movie to MPEG-4” and then click the “Options…” button.

    

26. For the “Video Format:”, select “Pass through” and then press “Ok”.

    

27. Title the video “Wallpaper.mp4″ and click save.

28. The video shouldn’t take but a few seconds to save.

    

    

29. SSH into your iPhone or iTouch and navigate to “/var/stash/Themes”.

    

30. Make a new folder here and title it something like “Video Background”.

    

    

31. Copy the video called “Wallpaper.mp4 into the new folder on your iPhone.
32. Open winterboard and select the name of the folder you created.

    

Congrats! When you respring your iDevice, you should have a full screen slideshow playing in the background.