Sandisk Connect 64gb Wireless media Drive

[rugmankc]

Not sure if correct thread--

I finally find something I could use my 119.70 Apple Gift Card for and find out it doesn't play iTune purchased DRM movies. Safari issues. Got the card for recycling an older iMac. Was gonna put some movies on it to travel. Should of bought the 128gb 6 Plus.

Wanna know anyones take on this thread, esp the last post. He seems to know how to work it and offers no tips.

Can't see Apple not mentioning this in Store. Well, yes I can.

http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/H...4gb-wireless-media-drive?page=1&rs=mostUseful

 

[garyleecn]

Not sure if correct thread--

I finally find something I could use my 119.70 Apple Gift Card for and find out it doesn't play iTune purchased DRM movies. Safari issues. Got the card for recycling an older iMac. Was gonna put some movies on it to travel. Should of bought the 128gb 6 Plus.

Wanna know anyones take on this thread, esp the last post. He seems to know how to work it and offers no tips.

Can't see Apple not mentioning this in Store. Well, yes I can.

http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/H...4gb-wireless-media-drive?page=1&rs=mostUseful

for now it's the ONLY drive in it's category that has cellular passthrough. it's a software trick, but really nice one, you can access files on the drive while maintain a cellular connection with outside world.

 

[rugmankc]

Thanks Gary,

Been looking for many storage options for my movies, iTunes and ripped ones, since I posted this. May just buy all my new movies from iTunes and make a backup copy of them, then stream from iCloud when I want to watch. Am trying it for awhile to see how they stream off wifi in the areas I want to watch them. Rippers and Software can get expensive.

Not quite sue what you mean. With this drive and the Cellular Passthrough, I can watch iTunes movies from it on my iPhone?? No loss in performance.

I will Google it and see if i can understand how to do that. Otherwise it seems to be well rated. Do you have it.

If you have a good link on the "how to" you can pm it to me--

 

[garyleecn]

Thanks Gary,

Been looking for many storage options for my movies, iTunes and ripped ones, since I posted this. May just buy all my new movies from iTunes and make a backup copy of them, then stream from iCloud when I want to watch. Am trying it for awhile to see how they stream off wifi in the areas I want to watch them. Rippers and Software can get expensive.

Not quite sue what you mean. With this drive and the Cellular Passthrough, I can watch iTunes movies from it on my iPhone?? No loss in performance.

I will Google it and see if i can understand how to do that. Otherwise it seems to be well rated. Do you have it.

If you have a good link on the "how to" you can pm it to me--

not sure what you are going to bypass DRM (is it called DRM or what?) on iTunes movies? and i don't think you can stream from iCloud, i think you will have to download it to your iPhone/ipad first, and you will need a wifi connection.

by cellular passthough, i mean when you connected to the sandisk's wifi, you will be able to access files over wifi, while keep connected to LTE network. for example, you can stream stuff off sandisk, and receive Facebook messages and other stuff. just say you have two connection
iphone -- sandisk
iphone -- LTE -- WWW at the same time

all other wifi drives (lacie, wd, seagate, toshiba) will only give you wifi connection. it's
iphone -- lacie only. if you don't have another wifi (home wifi, hotspot or whatever) to connect your lacie to, you will NOT receive anything from WWW (Facebook, notifications, push, emails, etc). it's just like you unplug the WAN cable from your router, you still have access to your LAN, but not WAN.



and yes, because you have an wifi connection alive, so you iPhone will think you are on wifi, but actually you are using your LTE data allowance. you can do things you are only allowed to do over wifi. for example, amazon prime video only allow you to stream video over wifi, when you are on LTE, it will simply not play (not speed problem). but when you are connected to sandisk, it will use your LTE data allowance, but 'thinks' you are over wifi, so videos plays fine.
there will be a performance loss









btw, if you are looking to play >10 1080p mkv movies, sandisk will not work. simply don't have enough wireless performance to play a 1080p mkv (>10 or 15g), but 720p plays just fine. other hard drive based devices (lacie, wd, seagate) works fine with those large high birrate files.

 

[rugmankc]

not sure what you are going to bypass DRM (is it called DRM or what?) on iTunes movies? and i don't think you can stream from iCloud, i think you will have to download it to your iPhone/ipad first, and you will need a wifi connection.

by cellular passthough, i mean when you connected to the sandisk's wifi, you will be able to access files over wifi, while keep connected to LTE network. for example, you can stream stuff off sandisk, and receive Facebook messages and other stuff. just say you have two connection
iphone -- sandisk
iphone -- LTE -- WWW at the same time

all other wifi drives (lacie, wd, seagate, toshiba) will only give you wifi connection. it's
iphone -- lacie only. if you don't have another wifi (home wifi, hotspot or whatever) to connect your lacie to, you will NOT receive anything from WWW (Facebook, notifications, push, emails, etc). it's just like you unplug the WAN cable from your router, you still have access to your LAN, but not WAN.



and yes, because you have an wifi connection alive, so you iPhone will think you are on wifi, but actually you are using your LTE data allowance. you can do things you are only allowed to do over wifi. for example, amazon prime video only allow you to stream video over wifi, when you are on LTE, it will simply not play (not speed problem). but when you are connected to sandisk, it will use your LTE data allowance, but 'thinks' you are over wifi, so videos plays fine.
there will be a performance loss









btw, if you are looking to play >10 1080p mkv movies, sandisk will not work. simply don't have enough wireless performance to play a 1080p mkv (>10 or 15g), but 720p plays just fine. other hard drive based devices (lacie, wd, seagate) works fine with those large high birrate files.

The passthrough won't help me on playing the iTunes movies.

I did read up and now understand what you said. It sounds like you have the drive and. Is that correct?

If so, can you play iTunes purchased movies. Those movies are DRM encrypted and since iOS 8.xxx Safari will not decrypt and play the movies. When you go to play the movie from the Sandisk it is opened in Safari. So, for me, this drive won't work. The places I need to play the movies have no wifi access of their own. I was hoping Apple resolved this in 8.4. Guess not--

Thanks for all the info on the passthrough--

 

[popcorn-in-sac]

I own and use the SanDisk device in question. Like you, I am unable to playback any iTunes purchased video content using the device. I also have a Seagate wireless media drive, and it has the same issue.

They used to playback protected content via Safari, but with a recent change by Apple, Safari can no longer decode the DRM within the iTunes video content, and the videos can't be played. As you said--waiting for a fix from Apple.

It's for this reason, and others, like perhaps a change away from Apple/iTunes some day, that I've generally stayed away from purchasing video content from Apple. I generally buy Blu-Ray discs instead, which gives me much greater flexibility in this regard.

Mark

 

[rugmankc]

Thanks Mark

 

[garyleecn]

The passthrough won't help me on playing the iTunes movies.

I did read up and now understand what you said. It sounds like you have the drive and. Is that correct?

If so, can you play iTunes purchased movies. Those movies are DRM encrypted and since iOS 8.xxx Safari will not decrypt and play the movies. When you go to play the movie from the Sandisk it is opened in Safari. So, for me, this drive won't work. The places I need to play the movies have no wifi access of their own. I was hoping Apple resolved this in 8.4. Guess not--

Thanks for all the info on the passthrough--

haven't tried iTunes movie, coz most of mine are mkv files, but i think it's a iTunes restriction, hard to bypass.

i believe you need wifi to stream iTunes videos? then cellular passthrough is a good trick to bypass the wifi restriction to use cellular to watch them.

 

[rugmankc]

I agree on the disappointment with Apple. They may/will lose my money. I thought I would start buying iTunes movies and could just leave them in iCloud to save storage, but forgot you can't stream them to watch over cellular.

I also buy the BD's too. I may just buy them from Best Buy, since they are starting Apple Pay soon, and rip them. I can get the SanDisk on my Apple Gift card and just pay for a nice ripper/converter. I already have a BlueRay player on my rMBP.

----------

Thanks Mark

Other than the iTunes issue, how do you like the SanDisk?

 

[Badrottie]

If you hate iTunes then what about Amazon or Google Play?

 

[rugmankc]

I am committed to Apple now and will make do. Too old and tired to keep changing--

For the most part the transition from Android to Apple has gone well. Photo Library works well and all the iOS updates are fairly error free. All the family, but one son, is on Apple and it has made things very nice. He will probably change when he feels he needs a new phone. My iPhone, IMHO, is the best phone I have owned to date.

Having thought a lot about this, I will stay with iTunes purchases of movies. They play very well on rMBP and iPhone as far as quality of picture goes. I have ripped movies before. But, only about 6-8 over 10 years. So, I don't see spending the time and money to rip a small amount over the next few years. For the holidays I just have the sons, daughter-in-law, and wife get the retail BluRay copy of the movies for the big screen tv and iTunes cards to purchase from the Store for the rMBP and iPhone.

I far as storage goes, I will make a copy of all iTunes purchased movies and store externally on my Lacie, and my one son is giving me his Time Capsule. So no issue on storing and protecting against the event were iTunes doesn't support the storing and downloading of those movies.

I'll leave the purchases on iTunes and keep just a few on iPhone at a time. Just cycle thru them. The ripped ones I have are backed up to the Lacie and Dropbox already.

For my relatively small number of movies this seems to be the best solution for me.

I'll take the gift card from Apple and get a nice Thule carrying case for both the rMBP and wife's iPad Air. The one online looks very nice and well rated.

Maybe Apple will update Safari at some point to allow the wireless media drive they sell online and in Stores to play the movies they sell in iTunes. Since they promote it to play them.