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Flash may be proprietary but it is also ubiquitous.

How can Flash be ubiquitous if Adobe is choosing not to release any newer versions of Flash for Linux?
How can Flash be ubiquitous if Adobe is no longer supporting Flash on the Android?
How can Flash be ubiquitous if Flash is not available on any iOS device?
 
I bet he torented his mkv and is all upset that he can't take his stolen movie and put it on the iPad his parents bought him. Because if he were as savvy as he insinuates, he'd have known what he bought and that every iDevice requires iTunes. I love iTunes personally.

How can you be so sure that downloading the movie utilizing bitorrent (or any other file-sharing technology), entailed copyright infringement? It may be naive to think it didn't, but you should get the facts straight before you accuse someone of stealing. A bit presumptuous, are we?
 
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Okie, I'm back.
Adobe's flash is being dumped in a big way. While a lot of HTML5 tech was driven by Adobe back when they first started the standard, Flash has become overly expensive to run on the front and back end of browsers. Users and especially web developers are favoring HTML5 now due to it's efficiency as well as having no need to have a front-of-the-house plugin in order to play videos or content. While some developers will still use Flash, these developers are dying out in droves.

For those of you playing back 1080p or 720p content on the iPad, you'll probably notice no difference on the iPad itself but I'm pretty sure that you'll notice slight stuttering when Airplaying 1080p. It looks like 720p will be the format of choice for most iPad users over the next year since Airplay/normal home wifi networks just can't support such huge streaming numbers without affecting the entire network. I would say about 90% of people using the iPad won't be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p videos. The difference is very slight. However, when blowing this up to more than 48 inches on a 1080p display, the differences will be more severe where I think about 60% of the population won't notice the difference.

I'm suggesting that "power" users using the iPad with MKV video use Goodplayer and AVPlayerHD in order to play their movies HOWEVER, expect to lose your battery life about 1/3 as fast so your total playback time will probably be in the range of 4-5 hours of playback on full charge. 1080p content will look choppy because the iPad's CPU is not enough to offset the data rate of 1080p MKV compressed in whatever crappy codec. If this is a major issue to those of you that want to play MKVs, I would suggest the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor which is 4+1 cores and will have enough juice to push the video through. This however will also decrease battery life pretty harshly. Last time I checked on the ASUS Transformer Prime, I eked out about 5 hours of playback before the main battery was toast. The Transformer Prime also doesn't support surround sound so if you're looking to do AAC 5.1, you'll be sorely disappointed. If the iPad Goodplayer app had hardware acceleration support and built in the codecs to be decoded by the PowerVR chipset, we could probably playback the MKVs much better but at the current rate, I don't think Apple will do that and until Android tablets/devices start having better hardware acceleration, the balance of quality and performance are going to be an issue. So for anyone looking to stream MKVs with H.264 1080p video with AAC5.1, you're going to have to use a full Intel chipset meaning at least Core 2 Duo in order to pump out this decoding.
 
You don't have to convert the file as there are tons of video players at the app store that will play just about any format.
Especially AVI and MKV files.
You just have to be willing to ask or take a look.
Tip: iTunes has a search box just type in what you are looking for.

Understood, though out of the box that is not the case.

I can also get Vista to run smoothly on my PC, alas that does not happen from from a fresh install

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As previously mentioned: iOS devices are optimized for MP4/M4V with hardware acceleration etc... any other codec will play far less efficiently.

If you really want to play back other codecs without conversion use a third party app. For anyone who accepts that, this is a non-issue.

B

Yes, though that is missing the point of what the OP posted. Compared to an Android device, its frustrating. With that I agree. And if I jailbreak, that makes things even easier, but that is missing the point even more.

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Streaming it directly from a service like Netflix, Hulu, ABC/NBC/... is easier for most users.

B

Sadly when I travel/leave home, I loose connection to these services. I do not always have an internect connection, nor do I drag my Imac/Nas arround so I can stream.

Streaming and ease of putting video files on the ipad are two different issues here.
 
Thanks for your answer whtrbt7

Okie, I'm back.
Adobe's flash is being dumped in a big way. While a lot of HTML5 tech was driven by Adobe back when they first started the standard, Flash has become overly expensive to run on the front and back end of browsers. Users and especially web developers are favoring HTML5 now due to it's efficiency as well as having no need to have a front-of-the-house plugin in order to play videos or content. While some developers will still use Flash, these developers are dying out in droves.

For those of you playing back 1080p or 720p content on the iPad, you'll probably notice no difference on the iPad itself but I'm pretty sure that you'll notice slight stuttering when Airplaying 1080p. It looks like 720p will be the format of choice for most iPad users over the next year since Airplay/normal home wifi networks just can't support such huge streaming numbers without affecting the entire network. I would say about 90% of people using the iPad won't be able to tell the difference between 720p and 1080p videos. The difference is very slight. However, when blowing this up to more than 48 inches on a 1080p display, the differences will be more severe where I think about 60% of the population won't notice the difference.

I'm suggesting that "power" users using the iPad with MKV video use Goodplayer and AVPlayerHD in order to play their movies HOWEVER, expect to lose your battery life about 1/3 as fast so your total playback time will probably be in the range of 4-5 hours of playback on full charge. 1080p content will look choppy because the iPad's CPU is not enough to offset the data rate of 1080p MKV compressed in whatever crappy codec. If this is a major issue to those of you that want to play MKVs, I would suggest the Nvidia Tegra 3 processor which is 4+1 cores and will have enough juice to push the video through. This however will also decrease battery life pretty harshly. Last time I checked on the ASUS Transformer Prime, I eked out about 5 hours of playback before the main battery was toast. The Transformer Prime also doesn't support surround sound so if you're looking to do AAC 5.1, you'll be sorely disappointed. If the iPad Goodplayer app had hardware acceleration support and built in the codecs to be decoded by the PowerVR chipset, we could probably playback the MKVs much better but at the current rate, I don't think Apple will do that and until Android tablets/devices start having better hardware acceleration, the balance of quality and performance are going to be an issue. So for anyone looking to stream MKVs with H.264 1080p video with AAC5.1, you're going to have to use a full Intel chipset meaning at least Core 2 Duo in order to pump out this decoding.
Thank you for presenting the Apple perspective in a civil way. The experience you describe is just as I have noted myself with Goodplayer. I may not understand the technology but I do know the net result is just as you ably explain it. I am aware that Flash is on the way out but I do feel we are still in a transition period, albeit the tail end of it. Again thanks for being civil which unfortunately is more than I can say to everyone here.
 
Streaming and ease of putting video files on the ipad are two different issues here.

Understood, but my point is that that is a niche case.

Most users would either stream or use a service/codec that is optimized for the hardware. If I am going to watch video in an offline situation I'll also probably be interested that it

a) use the battery efficiently
b) use the available memory efficiently (i.e. not a straight ~30 GB BluRay MKV rip).

B
 
Im not reading the whole thread however......

Why is the iPad so complicated/frustrating?

I cant think of anything easier than using iOS. Frustrating and complicated are 2 things I can honestly say I have never encountered on an Apple device.

Perhaps people who find it complicated are ahem 'n00bs'? :D
 
Gotta agree with the OP although I mastered the iPad foolishness in 2010. Simple tasks are over complicated by all the extra steps. Example: Audio Copy Paste, Transfering of Movie files, importing Pictures and video via the Usless SD Card adapter unless Jailbroken, Getting Data to certain apps from external sources, etc..
 
Understood, though out of the box that is not the case.

I can also get Vista to run smoothly on my PC, alas that does not happen from from a fresh install

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I think you are splitting hairs now.
And if you think of the main slogan it all makes sense.
" There's an app for that "
 
Understood, but my point is that that is a niche case.

Most users would either stream or use a service/codec that is optimized for the hardware. If I am going to watch video in an offline situation I'll also probably be interested that it

a) use the battery efficiently
b) use the available memory efficiently (i.e. not a straight ~30 GB BluRay MKV rip).

B

I agree with you there.

To make life easier for the people encoding videos, it would be nice to have itunes accept various file formats and encode the videos for the user and spit our optimised MP4s.

Most people who put encoded mp4s on their ipads are far far from optimised and as you said, will either suffer in playback or chew through the battery.
 
How can you be so sure that downloading the movie utilizing bitorrent (or any other file-sharing technology), entailed copyright infringement? It may be naive to think it didn't, but you should get the facts straight before you accuse someone of stealing. A bit presumptuous, are we?

Just goes to show you the type of people you're dealing with here. It's only legal if you download it from iTunes :rolleyes:
 
Guys, c'mon.

I'm a newbie to Apple and its' products. My new iPad is my first Apple product. I'd only ever picked one up briefly before to see what it was and what it did.

And EVEN I manage to get it to play videos of any format using an app called AVPlayer HD. It's all very simple. Just plug in your iPad, open up iTunes, go to the app in iTunes, and drag and drop your movie into it. Really......what could be simpler? The biggest problem I've had was getting my DVDs to rip properly until I realised that the copy-protection was giving me problems. (I'm a bit stoopid sometimes). A download of AnyDVD later and I was in business.

What I'm saying is...I'm not a "fanboy" (whatever one of those is), I'm new to all this, I'm not much of a tech wizard, but even I manage to play movies with no real problems. No converting, nothing. If I can do it, a toilet-trained baboon with only one arm could do it! :D

(oh and I use a bit of software called "Handbrake" to rip my DVDs- they play nicely in iPad's own video player. I reckon that DOES do a bit of conversion- but any AVIs and stuff like that play in AVPlayer.)
 
To make life easier for the people encoding videos, it would be nice to have itunes accept various file formats and encode the videos for the user and spit our optimised MP4s.

Agreed. It would be nice if Apple and the content providers had come to some agreement on how that could be done for content on disc. Unfortunately, DRM still rules the roost for video content so the content most folks really want to watch on their iOS devices is either locked up or simply not available.

Instead, what we have now is a system that in some ways works better, but only for select titles.

When you buy a movie on disc that includes an iTunes "Digital Copy", you let iTunes copy the file from the disc on which it was provided and redeem a code on the iTunes store. Now you get that movie in your "Purchased" list so you can watch it again later and stream it to your :apple:TV2 or other iOS device from the cloud. Much faster than encoding it from scratch.

Of course with some studios adopting Ultraviolet instead of iTunes Digital Copy and many other titles nto available with Digital Copy this doesn't always work... So we're back at DRM.

If you've got DRM free content (like video you shot yourself) or live somewhere where DRM can legally be removed, just use Handbrake to create optimized MP4s.

B
 
I bought an iPad 2 it was so easy to use that my wife "borrowed" it, so now we have one each. My wife really is not a techy and she finds it so easy to use.
 
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