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Dads dilemma

M

Mistry

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 20, 2012
7
2
Hiya all, I need some help, my dad loves his apple products and wants to upgrade his old iPad to an iPad Pro.

The issue is that he likes to download movies and watch them on his devices. Therefore he needs to plug an external USB device into his new device, we therefore considered a surface pro but we just feel the iPad Pro would be a better bet.

Is it possible to connect an external USB device to the iPad Pro without a big kerfuffle?

Thanks

Iain
 
The new iPad Pro is not significantly better than the original iPad when taking into consideration the age of the user and the intended use case, watching movies. For example, the improved visual quality and audio quality will probably not be appreciated by someone that is over 60-70 years old.
 
chelsel said:
The new iPad Pro is not significantly better than the original iPad when taking into consideration the age of the user and the intended use case, watching movies. For example, the improved visual quality and audio quality will probably not be appreciated by someone that is over 60-70 years old.
Click to expand...
Ok, so an iPad Air 2 would be better. How do your comment help?
 
The iPad Air 2 is a very good tablet. I would question why the user wants a Pro, other than it being called "Pro"... like I said, it doesn't really offer features that are significantly better for the intended purpose.
 
chelsel said:
The new iPad Pro is not significantly better than the original iPad when taking into consideration the age of the user and the intended use case, watching movies. For example, the improved visual quality and audio quality will probably not be appreciated by someone that is over 60-70 years old.
Click to expand...
chelsel said:
The iPad Air 2 is a very good tablet. I would question why the user wants a Pro, other than it being called "Pro"... like I said, it doesn't really offer features that are significantly better for the intended purpose.
Click to expand...
[doublepost=1493760770][/doublepost]The question is, can I us an external USB device or not. If not the next I'll need to move away from apple.
 
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Im not sure. Is he using his current iPad with an external USB dongle? If not, why the change in viewing habits?
 
can you show him how to add video files to the iPad pro? so you don't need USB sticks?
take it he uses a pc to download the video and stick it on the USB drive?
 
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File management: the bane of iOS.

If you connect your USB drive and iPad to a computer, you can drag and drop videos through iTunes.
 
chelsel said:
Im not sure. Is he using his current iPad with an external USB dongle? If not, why the change in viewing habits?
Click to expand...

Actually this is a good point. The OP mentioned that their dad already has an iPad, so my suggestion would be to test what you need to do with the existing iPad and then decide whether to move to a Pro or not. The only difference here being a faster processor, more memory and a bigger screen.
My opinion: yes you can download movies, yes you can transfer them to a USB stick somehow, probably, (I've never done it), but should you need to change a codec or re-format the video file you might be in trouble with an iPad.
 
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Don't forget the quad speakers so that you can get proper stereo sound regardless screen orientation

It is because of this I am willing to get an iPad Pro for my parents who are now using an iPad 2
 
chelsel said:
The new iPad Pro is not significantly better than the original iPad when taking into consideration the age of the user and the intended use case, watching movies. For example, the improved visual quality and audio quality will probably not be appreciated by someone that is over 60-70 years old.
Click to expand...

I disagree the improved brightness and loudness and audio quality would enhance the experience for anyone of any age.
 
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Mistry said:
Hiya all, I need some help, my dad loves his apple products and wants to upgrade his old iPad to an iPad Pro.

The issue is that he likes to download movies and watch them on his devices. Therefore he needs to plug an external USB device into his new device, we therefore considered a surface pro but we just feel the iPad Pro would be a better bet.

Is it possible to connect an external USB device to the iPad Pro without a big kerfuffle?

Thanks

Iain
Click to expand...


I believe with either the iPad Pro or the Ipad Air 2, you can connect a USB drive to the iPad and upload movies as long as they are in a put in a subdirectory called "DCIM" and use the 8.3 naming pattern. It still requires uploading the movies to the iPad.

Maybe something along the lines of a Seagate Wireless Plus drive would be a better option. Your dad could download the movies to the Wireless Plus drive and then stream them to the iPad. The drive actually supports streaming 3 different HD movies to 3 different devices at the same time.
 
I get video onto my iPad in a number of ways.
Firstly, there's via iTunes. However, I use an app called nPlayer to connect to remote drives. I have a wifi enabled drive called Seagate Wireless. It's a 2TB drive that can connect to a computer via USB, but also the iPad via wifi. Also, if you are on the same wifi network as other computers or servers, you can download video in nPlayer from those drives over wifi.
 
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millydog said:
I get video onto my iPad in a number of ways.
Firstly, there's via iTunes. However, I use an app called nPlayer to connect to remote drives. I have a wifi enabled drive called Seagate Wireless. It's a 2TB drive that can connect to a computer via USB, but also the iPad via wifi. Also, if you are on the same wifi network as other computers or servers, you can download video in nPlayer from those drives over wifi.
Click to expand...


Hi Millydog. I am assuming the Seagate Wireless is the same or similar to the drive I linked in the post above yours? How has your experience been with it in terms of ease of use, speed, video quality, etc. I was concidering purchasing one myself.
 
SDColorado said:
Hi Millydog. I am assuming the Seagate Wireless is the same or similar to the drive I linked in the post above yours? How has your experience been with it in terms of ease of use, speed, video quality, etc. I was concidering purchasing one myself.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is like that one. You download the SeagateMedia app to configure it...which includes setting a wifi password on it and connecting it to a subsequent wifi network. The wifi pass through means that Internet access is slower than direct connections.
You can continue to use that app to watch video, back up photos to the drive and access other files. However, I prefer to pick my own third-party app to use for downloading video.
The drive will also sync with a couple of cloud solutions....Dropbox is one of them and I can't recall the other, it may have been One Drive, but I don't have my drive with me at work at the moment to check.

So, I find that the drive is great for storing video for watching on the iPad for myself and my kids. You can actually stream 3 videos from it at once and if you are in the car, the kids can watch video on it even if you don't have it connected to a wifi network for Internet access..so the drive is its own wifi network. The kids can even both connect to it to play Minecraft against each other in the car since they are then on the same wifi. If you want Internet access in such a situation though, you'd have to connect to it from one of the iPads and enable it, say from Personal Hotspot on your iPhone. It is clunky to change to change the wifi it is connected it, but can be done.
When I'm at home, I usually connect directly to my computer to obtain video, but use the drive as my portable solution. If you didn't have a computer and load video from other computers then you could store it on the wifi drive and access it as required. It gives you an extra 2TB of storage for your iPad.

In summary, it is straight forward to set up. The first firmware update that I performed on it has to be loaded via a PC though, but now it updates itself if it has wifi access to the Internet configured. The video quality is great and I use video that has been converted to iPad in Handbreak.
 
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Thanks for the thorough review, I really appreciate it. Maybe a current unit would have a newer version of the software and not require that initial first step? I assume you can also connect it to a DVR and record movies and shows to it from cable?
 
No problem for my review, glad to help. I have the 2TB which is the latest release as well as the original 1TB version. The 2TB has updated connectors on it, so be careful if you locate a 1TB drive that it is the later version.
I don't know if you can record from a DVR, but you would either have to charge the drive's battery first or have a box that provided the drive with power to do so. I'm in Australia and have Foxtel which does not enable recording to external boxes, only the built in drive.
 
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Back on topic, which is getting movies onto an IPad. Not a streaming setup, but so that dad can have a movie or TV show at his disposal if he goes out of the house. And, I assume not paid content that would be available for things ala ITunes or Google Play Video etc, as that purchased content can be downloaded directly to the device through those apps.

I was under the impression ITunes was the only way to drop files onto an iPad from an external source like that but I haven't done that in my limited IOS time, and just have rented movies for trips via ITunes or Google Play.

Having Android tablets was a lot simpler to drag and drop when connected to a computer, or use an OTG connector to a USB stick (can this be done on an IPad?). Or, of course an android tablet that has a Micro sd card slot, and jus load the movies on a card and pop it in.
 
Well the Seagate Wireless drive is one way to do that without iTunes. I just thought of another way to add to that. You can use a third party app such as nPlayer, which has a WiFi Transfer option. You turn that on, then on a PC, you go to the URL provided and start adding files. The files will be loaded into the nPlayer app that way too. I still think that you will need to be on the same wifi network for both the iPad and the PC, but that's another way to transfer files on without using iTunes.
 
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Thanks everyone for your input, I never expected such a good response.

OK in summary, its possible to connect an external USB drive to an iPad as long as I use a lightning to USB adaptor, and place the movie files in a folder called DCIM. This will then show up within iTunes and allow me to transfer them over to the internal iPad storage...is this correct?
 
chelsel said:
The iPad Air 2 is a very good tablet. I would question why the user wants a Pro, other than it being called "Pro"... like I said, it doesn't really offer features that are significantly better for the intended purpose.
Click to expand...

The Pro has _much_ better sound.
 
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