Is there any easy way of loading non mp4 onto ipad?

Forums › Apple iOS and devices › Is there any easy way of loading non mp4 onto ipad?

Batman

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#138251 27-Dec-2013 08:15

I have lots of avi files (old videos) that i want to use as kids entertainment on our 11 hour flight.

To my horror it wont let me get it on the ipad! Only mp4! Seriously?

I thout there are apps that "play everything" on the app store? Ifdyou cant get anything on the ipad how are you supposed to play everything?!

I am defecting to a surface RT or a galaxy 10.1 if that's the case! Which one is better?

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#957805 27-Dec-2013 08:40

Loads. Just search the App Store for avi player or something.

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#957829 27-Dec-2013 09:43

I've got a great video player called Flex Player.

Simple to use, good quality pictures and free on the App Store.

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#957830 27-Dec-2013 09:44

VLC or Infuse 2 from Firecore will do this for you.

scuwp

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#957833 27-Dec-2013 09:55

As above, I use VLC. Plays just about anything. Just drag and drop into the app on iTunes on your computer.

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#957870 27-Dec-2013 10:27

I use Plex at home for TV/Movies and had a PlexPass which allows me to offline sync content to a device.

When I went to the US earlier this year I sycned a bunch of TV I was watching and a few movies to watch on the plane. Worked really well.

Plex also tracks the watched status of episodes, so it was nice to get home, sync the iPad and have the watched status of shows update to all the Plex clients.

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#957893 27-Dec-2013 10:49

I can't even get the MP4 files I have onto my 5th Gen ipod touch! Not sure why. I can see them in itunes, but not in videos after I did a sync.

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tdgeek

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#957896 27-Dec-2013 10:52

Yes, lots of options, but there is a caveat.

Despite it being easy to get non mp4 files onto an iPad, non supported file types will not use hardware acceleration, so if the video was HD it may be jerky unless you have a newer fast iPad. Or you can convert to mp4 using Handbrake

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#957919 27-Dec-2013 11:46

Another option, similar to Adam's plex - which will convert to the correct format for the device - on the fly for streaming, or is you get plexpass you can offline store teh files.

But VideoStream is a file system based program (only pc and phone) that will do similar. Transcode on the fly, and allow conversion and storage on the phone.

Doing it this way has the advantage of being able to keep a high quality version on the computer and it generates a lower quality copy suitable for local playback on your device. Plex is more flexible as per devices, but requires a bit more setup and configuration.

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#957949 27-Dec-2013 13:33

Hmm ... thanks ... Too late I got an Asus transformer Windows 8.1

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#957954 27-Dec-2013 13:58

davidcole: Doing it this way has the advantage of being able to keep a high quality version on the computer and it generates a lower quality copy suitable for local playback on your device. Plex is more flexible as per devices, but requires a bit more setup and configuration.

This is a tad ridiculous these days, don't you think?

It's an advantage to have the high quality version on the computer? I'll use the same high quality file on my computer and my phone and tablet thanks. Proper hardware acceleration, no workarounds needed.

My phones have been able to do this since 2011, and current phones will handle things up to 40mb/s without issues (ie much higher bitrate than sane people tend to encode their stuff in). The only exception to this is 10-bit files, which are still software decoded and anything above 720p with a middling bitrate will have playback difficulties (fortunately 10-bit is pretty niche, I only know about it as I have a few small 10-bit clips in my wide-codec test batch files).

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#957964 27-Dec-2013 14:22

NZtechfreak:
davidcole: Doing it this way has the advantage of being able to keep a high quality version on the computer and it generates a lower quality copy suitable for local playback on your device. Plex is more flexible as per devices, but requires a bit more setup and configuration.

This is a tad ridiculous these days, don't you think?

It's an advantage to have the high quality version on the computer? I'll use the same high quality file on my computer and my phone and tablet thanks. Proper hardware acceleration, no workarounds needed.

My phones have been able to do this since 2011, and current phones will handle things up to 40mb/s without issues (ie much higher bitrate than sane people tend to encode their stuff in). The only exception to this is 10-bit files, which are still software decoded and anything above 720p with a middling bitrate will have playback difficulties (fortunately 10-bit is pretty niche, I only know about it as I have a few small 10-bit clips in my wide-codec test batch files).

I quess if storage size is a factor you wouldn't really want a 11gb 1080p MKV floating aroudn on your tablet. When really it only needs to be about 1.5 to 2gb.

I've an iPad mini, and it's pretty capable as playing anything (with goodplayer) but I do have a bunch on content I don't want to keep local as I'd rather fill it up with other things that are not as usable other than on a tablet.

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#957975 27-Dec-2013 15:03

I use AVPlayerHD. Once installed on the iPad plug it in to your iTunes, click on the device, go to the apps tag and scroll down to see the apps you can manage. Click on the app then click add file and drag and drop the local files to your iPad. You can select all of them at once as long as they are in the same folder so I suggest doing that. Then you can walk away if it is 30gb or so to copy over as it will take some time.

It will play everything I have tried so far over the last few years and has not had many play back issues either.

May I suggest an audio splitter for headphones to run 2 sets from the same device. Watching a movie on half a set of earphones has you constantly thinking you're missing something. Usually because you are.

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#957982 27-Dec-2013 15:49

I use file explorer (orange tile with a big letter E) advantage is that I don't have to attach my ipad to the computer to put files on it.

Otherwise I would recommend using hand break to convert them. You can control the rate to make smaller files too if needed.

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#957983 27-Dec-2013 15:51

StarBlazer: I use file explorer (orange tile with a big letter E) advantage is that I don't have to attach my ipad to the computer to put files on it.

Otherwise I would recommend using hand break to convert them. You can control the rate to make smaller files too if needed.

Good player and I think a number if the other ones allow download from samba/FTP/WebDAV etc.

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#957984 27-Dec-2013 16:02

use something like avidemux to remux your .avi files to .mp4

it should only take a few seconds per file. (don't i-devices require .m4v extn for mp4 files?)

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