Play DVD on iPad
The iPad offers one of the best video experience in portable devices. Its 9.7 inch screen is ideal to watch high quality media. I encourage you to download various samples of HD quality free TV episodes and documentaries available on the iTunes store to experience the magic. There are plenty of opportunities available on the iPad to watch TV series and media, such as iTunes store itself is the biggest repository. And then we have the excellent Netflix app. ABC channel also has an awesome app on the iPad platform making best use of its large landscape and playback abilities.
But then there comes a time when you need to watch the media you have been acquiring in form of DVDs etc. Apple as always has been pretty restrictive in allowing what works and what not works on the iPad. Apple allows you to watch:
H.264 video up to 720p, 30 frames per second, Main Profile level 3.1 with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;
MPEG-4 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second, Simple Profile with AAC-LC audio up to 160 Kbps, 48kHz, stereo audio in .m4v, .mp4, and .mov file formats;
Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format
In plain English the above means your torrent collection won’t directly play on the iPad until and unless you pass it through some converters. Googling will bring up million’s of result pages where softwares with names alike DVD to iPad with various incarnation would do a the same job: Convert the DVD data to iPad compatible format. Period. So lets give a shot to one these software’s to see how we can enjoy the viewing pleasure on the iPad.
Step 1: Acquire a Conversion / Ripping software
Handbrake is an open source app for the same purpose, which runs on multiple platforms. Perian is also another option, which uses quicktime to crunch the conversions.
Step 2: Select media to convert
After installing the software insert the DVD to convert or provide local file to convert from. Once the media is selected, press the Start/Convert/Rip button and the final output mp4 file will be stored in the destination folder. The software provides you the customize the settings; change format, bit rate, frames per second etc. You can experiment with these settings in time to see what works best with your media.
Note: This process is directly proportional to hardware capabilities of your machine.
Step 3: Add the movie in iTunes & Transfer
By now you must be aware that what goes into iPad, must go through the mighty iTunes apps. By adding the converted movie you will allow the media file to be visible and transferable to the iPad. If iPad is not connected already, please connect and transfer the movies from iTunes.
Step 4: Enjoy
Your effort is not in vain. The viewing experience will simply pay off the hassle you had to go through to convert the media.
Conclusion:
Its best to convert the media at a time when you don’t need to use the machine for any other purpose, as the machine becomes incredibly slow. There are some DVDs, which come with special encryption and regional locks. You can try Mactheripper to convert these DVDs to a playback format on your Mac first and then convert them into mp4 format using your favorite tool.
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reviews…
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Handbreak is really great, it’s open source and totally free. But to be honest, it’s quite complicated and not easy-to-use, especially for beginers. I’ve been using this till my friend got me an Aimersoft DVD Ripper for mac.