I want to convert a movie so i can put it in my iPad - Need a quick answer!

[Starfighter]

Didn't Azul Media Player allow iPad users to watch several file types (avi, wmv, up to 720p, subtitles etc) without having to convert? That would be the fastest option.

Edit: Ah, now I see LAnMarc already mentioned the app.

[gngan]

Originally Posted by dchao

Why don't you answer OP's question?

OP is trying to rip a Harry Potter and the deathly hallows DVD. and then want to have it stored in iPad so he/she can watch it whenever. But OP doesn't want to wait for the ripping and conversion.

My vote goes to handbrake and let it run overnight as well. Because MPEG4/H.264 is the native encoding format for iPad.

Cause I don't see anywhere in the thread that he has the DVD? I thought he already have the digital/soft copy of the movies.

Thanks everyone! My posts were confusing :/

Why, WHY is every answer in every thread "jailbreak"? I don't WANT TO!!

Jailbreak enables you to do a lot more than stock. That's why!

[SvenSvenson]

Originally Posted by dchao

Why don't you answer OP's question?

Because the OP may not know that you don't have to convert a file and use the iPad's 'videos' app via iTunes sync to watch movies.

He may not know that you can install an alternative video player (I have VLC, but I believe that's not available now, although I'm sure there are others) and simply copy your file over via iTunes file sharing with no conversion required.

Steve

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by Nevzorus

Thanks everyone! My posts were confusing :/

Why, WHY is every answer in every thread "jailbreak"? I don't WANT TO!!

Because, among other things, XBMC has excellent native DVD playback support; this is why I've listed it above as a highly recommended free native MPEG2+MKV (and DVD) player. (Note that it doesn't support the iPad 3 Retina resolution.)

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Originally Posted by SvenSvenson

Because the OP may not know that you don't have to convert a file and use the iPad's 'videos' app via iTunes sync to watch movies.

One should avoid using that - HandBrake (if it's needed at all, see the case of MPEG2-capable third-party apps) is way faster.

Originally Posted by SvenSvenson

He may not know that you can install an alternative video player (I have VLC, but I believe that's not available now, although I'm sure there are others) and simply copy your file over via iTunes file sharing with no conversion required.

VLC has been removed from AppStore - but it wasn't very good to begin with (it's way worse than the top players available today in almost every respect). Also, if he converts the DVD files to MKV's via MakeMKV, they will be played back by a lot more players and it doesn't take much time.

[SvenSvenson]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

One should avoid using that - HandBrake (if it's needed at all, see the case of MPEG2-capable third-party apps) is way faster.

Errr, no. If you have videos in the right format, iTunes sync works perfectly. Just tick the videos you want on your iPad. And Handbrake can't really be faster, as it doesn't do the job of copying files to your iPad; it just does the conversion, so they don't compete.

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

VLC has been removed from AppStore - but it wasn't very good to begin with (it's way worse than the top players available today in almost every respect). Also, if he converts the DVD files to MKV's via MakeMKV, they will be played back by a lot more players and it doesn't take much time.

Yes. Basically as I said. Except that VLC playback is just fine. But thanks for confirming what I said.

Steve

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by SvenSvenson

Errr, no. If you have videos in the right format, iTunes sync works perfectly. Just tick the videos you want on your iPad. And Handbrake can't really be faster, as it doesn't do the job of copying files to your iPad; it just does the conversion, so they don't compete.

No, I meant HB is way faster than anything else, including iTunes' own H.264 encoder.

Except that VLC playback is just fine.

It has, depending on the format, from slightly to way worse video decoders than the top of today's players, even free ones (QQPlayerHD etc.) With SD content like DVD's, the difference isn't that apparent; with more demanding videos (HD, Full HD) the difference may be even tremendous.

[mcdj]

Anyone who still converts movie files into iTunes friendly files is wasting their time. As mentioned by others, there are now MANY apps that play multiple videos formats directly on the iPad...no streaming or converting involved. Goodplayer is my favorite. You drag and drop movies right into the app via iTunes.

Converting for iTunes is totally outdated.

[dchao]

Originally Posted by mcdj

Converting for iTunes is totally outdated.

what? Are you saying DVD's Mpeg2 format is more advance than h264? Why waste precious space on your iPad to storage video files in a less efficient format?

And without conversion, how are you going to watch BD on your iPad?

[AnimaLeo]

I think David Lynch said it best when...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0

[Pompiliu]

Originally Posted by Menneisyys2

I too have it on my iPad 3 with properly converted footage and non-fullscreen playback allowing for true 1:1 pixel mapping (see my true 1080p player at http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/ex...-3-source-code )

So are you saying with that app, 1080p movies will be displayed with black-bars on all sides? LOL That's pretty stupid, if you ask me. It's a 10 inch screen, with blakc bars, you'll have 7 inch. =))=))
facepalm.jpg.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by Pompiliu

So are you saying with that app, 1080p movies will be displayed with black-bars on all sides? LOL That's pretty stupid, if you ask me. It's a 10 inch screen, with blakc bars, you'll have 7 inch. =))=))
facepalm.jpg.

Do the math, pal, before stating such nonsense.... First: how much is 2048 minus 1920 divided by 2?

[kokhean]

Originally Posted by Nevzorus

I don't want it in an app, i want to have it in videos so i can watch it whenever i want without an internet connection since my iPad will be Wi-fi.

I don't think that you need an internet connection to be able to play videos from third party apps...

Originally Posted by mcdj

Anyone who still converts movie files into iTunes friendly files is wasting their time. As mentioned by others, there are now MANY apps that play multiple videos formats directly on the iPad...no streaming or converting involved. Goodplayer is my favorite. You drag and drop movies right into the app via iTunes.

Converting for iTunes is totally outdated.

I totally agree. I got tired of converting files all the time that I decided to go with the drag and drop concept.

AcePlayer, OPlayer or GPlayer should do the trick.

[dchao]

Originally Posted by Pompiliu

So are you saying with that app, 1080p movies will be displayed with black-bars on all sides? LOL That's pretty stupid, if you ask me. It's a 10 inch screen, with blakc bars, you'll have 7 inch. =))=))
facepalm.jpg.

With blu-ray 2.41 aspect ratio movies, I normally crop it down to 16:9 first then compress down to 3-4mbps. And then mix in the proper subtitles (and AC3 audio track for ATV). This way I can carry a lot more movies with me on my iPad, or stream it from iPad to my ATV with full Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.

There is nothing that can beat the re-encoded videos.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by kokhean

I totally agree. I got tired of converting files all the time that I decided to go with the drag and drop concept.

AcePlayer, OPlayer or GPlayer should do the trick.

Speaking of AcePlayer, a quick warning: it doesn't recognize the aspect ratio in either TS or MKV containers; it defaults to 4:3. It must be manually reconfigured to 16:9 (Info icon / Aspect Ratio).

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Originally Posted by dchao

With blu-ray 2.41 aspect ratio movies, I normally crop it down to 16:9 first

Ouch! It'd be easier / better to use a zooming-capable player on the iPad with hardware playback. Then, if you really know there isn't anything of interest in the unvisible area, you could just dynamically zoom (with a two-finger pinch) into the video to have 16:9 (and, therefore, much better utilization of the vertical screen estate). It's Playing is a perfect example pf such a player. And if you encounter a scene where there is (for example, somebody), you can quickly rewind to there (some screen swipes to the left in It's Playing) and zoom out a bit for a moment.

then compress down to 3-4mbps

That's quite pushing it... IMHO, for 1080p, significantly higher bitrates (between 8...10 Mbps, assuming two-pass X.264 encoding) should be preferable for (almost-)flawless image quality.

[dchao]

The main problem here is that, the memory on an iPad is not cheap, and it is not expandable If you use an all-in-one player without conversion, you will need to buy the largest iPad there is to store just a few HD movies. If you do the conversion with settings optimized for iPad viewing, you can compress the video even more. Also, the video files you put on iPad don't need to be the same as the iPhone version, the iPhone version can be compressed even more than the iPad one, so they take up even less space.

If iPad had a SD card slot, I would agree with you, because you can just take as many SD cards with you on the road as you like. But right now, the offline conversion is the best option.

I believe 3-4mbps is the video bit rate iTunes use for their HD movies (720p), which is good enough for iPad and ATV. Also if I want to enjoy the movie in the director's intended AR, then I would want to watch it on my HDTV instead.

Alternatively, you can use a host-based video player like Air Video, so you can either stream the video off the host or convert it in offline mode for offline viewing (pretty fast). Best of both worlds.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by dchao

The main problem here is that, the memory on an iPad is not cheap, and it is not expandable If you use an all-in-one player without conversion, you will need to buy the largest iPad there is to store just a few HD movies. If you do the conversion with settings optimized for iPad viewing, you can compress the video even more. Also, the video files you put on iPad don't need to be the same as the iPhone version, the iPhone version can be compressed even more than the iPad one, so they take up even less space.

If iPad had a SD card slot, I would agree with you, because you can just take as many SD cards with you on the road as you like. But right now, the offline conversion is the best option.

Yup, it'll always be the question of storage vs. quality. I've purchased a 64G model of iPad3 exactly because of this (my iPad 1 is a 32G, the iPad 2 is a 16G model; needless to say, I've always run out storage on the latter and decided not to purchase anything below 64GB any more): to be able to put as many high-quality movies (some of them even taking 20-22 Gbyte) on it as possible (in addition to my favorite apps).

I believe 3-4mbps is the video bit rate iTunes use for their HD movies (720p), which is good enough for iPad and ATV. Also if I want to enjoy the movie in the director's intended AR, then I would want to watch it on my HDTV instead.

Apple uses a very low and, for the IQ, really destructive bitrate, which results in, among other things, banding effect. There are several articles directly comparing the quality of Apple's iTunes videos to those of (properly, meaning X264 + two pass) encoded around 8-12 Mbps: http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1340463

[TheGodLoki]

Hey guys and gals .. this is my first post here

Since the iPad can natively decode h.264 video I figured there should be a way to extract the video stream from one of those lovely HD .mkv files that you obtain from various places.

I found a quick way to do this .. with a medium spec windows pc or windows running in a VM.

You will need XMedia Recode 3.0.8.1 - http://www.videohelp.com/download/XM...3081_setup.exe

Open File -> Select video to convert
Set Format & File Extension to MP4
Set Audio Codec to AAC
Click the Video Tab and tick the Video Copy box (At the bottom of the other settings)
Click the Audio tab and set Bitrate to 448
Set Channels to Stereo
Click Add Job then Encode

What this will do is; pass-through the video, re-encode the audio and re-package as an iTunes friendly .MP4

It is important that you tick the Video Copy box on the Video tab or it will re-encode the video and you will be there for hours!

The whole process should take less than 10min and once it's done you can then add the file to iTunes and sync to the iPad as you normally would.

I have tested this on various types of source files and it works brilliantly!

[shamash]

Originally Posted by My name is Alex

Try AVplayerHD its a buck on the app store and you just drag and drop from inside iTunes.

+1 for AVPlayerHD. I tried VLC and it was crap, AVPlayerHD is teh pwnz!

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by shamash

I tried VLC and it was crap, AVPlayerHD is teh pwnz!

Yup... too bad a lot of people automatically think VLC on iOS must be as good as that on the desktop, which is in no way the case. (VLC sucks in most respects on iOS, even the Cydia version.)

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Originally Posted by TheGodLoki

You will need XMedia Recode 3.0.8.1 - http://www.videohelp.com/download/XM...3081_setup.exe

Thanks - at last a non-commercial app (this forum is full of ads posted by gerilla advertisers). I will definitely test and review it.

EDIT: started testing it (under CrossOver on my Mac). So far, great results. Will report more.

[dchao]

Originally Posted by TheGodLoki

You will need XMedia Recode 3.0.8.1

If you don't need to re-encode, Have you tried Subler? I use it a lot for subtitles and AC3 pass through , but I think you can drag and drop MKV's into the app too. It will fill in all the tags as well.

[Menneisyys2]

Originally Posted by TheGodLoki

Click the Audio tab and set Bitrate to 448

Isn't it a bit of overkill for stereo audio? IMHO, 128 kbps for stereo AAC is sufficient.

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Originally Posted by dchao

If you don't need to re-encode, Have you tried Subler? I use it a lot for subtitles and AC3 pass through , but I think you can drag and drop MKV's into the app too. It will fill in all the tags as well.

Subler is OS X only (can't be run by Windows people), while Xmedia Recode is a Windows app (which runs under OS X too, even under Wine / CrossOver).

[Fuzzy.Dunlop]

Another shout for AVplayerHD, since the update its massively improved

I use it for all my old AVI's - sod converting everything with handbrake