57 replies to this topic

[the Battle Cat]

My wife has an iPad 2 and wants to download movies to it to watch later when she is out of range of wifi, a situation that will occur next week.  The problem is, it's not a straight forward thing and I've about given up on finding a way for her to do this.

The movies she is interested are public domain, very old movies that are free to download.  How can she accomplish this and CAN she accomplish this.  Now we have a couple movies downloaded and sitting on our desktop.  If I can't download directly to the iPad, how may I transfer these movies to her iPad?

[Hansi]

I use GoodPlayer for this. You can load the movies via iTunes or connect to HTTP, AFP, SMB, SFTP, DLNA/UPnP and download or stream from there.

[the Battle Cat]

Thanks, I'll check it out.  Recent reviews though are pretty harsh as they have removed some functionality from it.  But with this app I can download old movies from veoh.com straight to my iPad or do I need to do some sort of "add file" in iTunes that doesn't seem to work for me with movies.

[doh123]

covert them to the correct format if needed... and sync through iTunes... is the main way.

my favorite way though is just to make sure they are compatible to be able to play and throw them in my Dropbox.  Then in Dropbox App on my iPad and iPhone I can play them and Star to favorite them so they stay on the device and don't have to download again.

[Eric5h5]

Right, just drag onto iTunes and sync, it's very simple...unless the format isn't compatible with iTunes, in which case you have to convert it, which may not be as simple depending on the format.

--Eric

[Frost]

What doh and Eric said. Very easy. As long as it's compatible, put it in iTunes, then sync it. Done! How I put stuff on my iPad mini.

[Thain Esh Kelch]

Handbrake should be able to deal with most stuff you find online, and it is very easy to do. As in select the movie, and click Start. I managed to get my girlfriend to learn that, so your wife should be able to also.

[the Battle Cat]

Thanks all.  My wife is very happy with Goodplayer.  BTW, didn't have any problems getting movies into iTunes but it refused to sync onto her iPad.  But that doesn't matter now.  She is up and running with downloaded movies.

[doh123]

the Battle Cat, on 17 January 2013 - 09:31 AM, said:

Thanks all.  My wife is very happy with Goodplayer.  BTW, didn't have any problems getting movies into iTunes but it refused to sync onto her iPad.  But that doesn't matter now.  She is up and running with downloaded movies.

has to be formatted right to sync... Handbrake can convert videos easily to do that.

[Hansi]

Better to just avoid converting and using GoodPlayer.

[the Battle Cat]

I was trying to sync mp4 files from my desktop iTunes to her iPad... iPad can't handle mp4?  Whatta wimpy little loser it is.

[Frost]

iPad can handle mp4s just fine, but I think they've gotta be within a certain specification. Usually if you put them in iTunes it'll take care of that... odd.

[Eric5h5]

MP4 is a container format...while iTunes can read MP4, it doesn't necessarily read the actual video format inside.

--Eric

[Tetsuya]

Frost, on 18 January 2013 - 02:03 PM, said:

iPad can handle mp4s just fine, but I think they've gotta be within a certain specification. Usually if you put them in iTunes it'll take care of that... odd.

only if you tell it to. iTunes on the computer can actually support more formats than the iPad can.  So it may be playable within iTunes but not on the iPad.  I just covert things via Handbrake.  Its super easy, can be done in batches, and can automatically reduce file sizes/reslotions for a target device (like iPad).  

the .mp4 file extension is a dishonest beast, since it is just a container, and the video within might be anything from DivX to h.264, and you have no way of knowing.

[the Battle Cat]

Well I did a "Create New Version" from the file menu and it said it was already in the correct format, but syncing it to the iPad doesn't work.  Is that the wrong conversion command to use?

[mindnoise]

I can also wholeheartedly recommend Movie Player
https://itunes.apple...79775?l=en&mt=8

This plays about any format you can find on the web. Absoluteley no conversion necessary.

also just renaming .mp4 to .m4v is mostly enough to make them be recognized by itunes/ iPad. It´s this old heritage from the old iPods it seems.

[DriftWolf]

QQplayer is what i use.

[the Battle Cat]

My wife has since settled on "Free Video".  I'll check out QQplayer for her.  Thanks.

[Diablofett]

the Battle Cat, on 16 January 2013 - 02:57 PM, said:

My wife has an iPad 2 and wants to download movies to it to watch later when she is out of range of wifi, a situation that will occur next week.  The problem is, it's not a straight forward thing and I've about given up on finding a way for her to do this.

The movies she is interested are public domain, very old movies that are free to download.  How can she accomplish this and CAN she accomplish this.  Now we have a couple movies downloaded and sitting on our desktop.  If I can't download directly to the iPad, how may I transfer these movies to her iPad?

You shall not ever play movies on your iPad!

[the Battle Cat]

Diablofett, on 22 March 2013 - 01:39 PM, said:

You shall not ever play movies on your iPad!

Thought you were dead Steve, or did they just put your head in a Futurama bottle?