Maybe this is me not really knowing all the in's and out's of IOS. I just couldn't get the iTune to play my video podcast in mini player mode. Either I get a screen that is tiny like a thumbnail, or I get a player that takes up half of the screen. Even though I starting to like my iPhone more and more, this feature is a score 1 for Microsoft. So much so that I've decided to carry 3 mobile devices for the short future (iPhone, Zune, my own dumb phone). And after moving all my podcasts to iPhone, I have now switched all the video feeds back onto Zune.
In the Zune player, I can choose 2 sizes (3 if you count full screen). The smaller size takes up about 3 inch by 1.5 inch area, where I can still comfortably do work.