How to Watch Any Video on the iPad

Written By Jared Moya

February 20, 2012 | 8 Comments

Guide to being able to watch any kind of video on the iPad in just a few simple steps.

Apple’s iPad has become one of the more popular portable devices for watching video on the go, leading to an increased demand for methods to allow non-iTunes acquired content to play on them. There’s two types of methods – conversion and non-conversion – and we’ll go over both so that you can deiced which one is best for you.

The differences between the two are time and finished product. Both will work, but both will create different videos requiring more or less of your time than the other.

Conversion takes a little while longer to finish since it reformats the entire video to the desired specifications while non-conversion simply requires changing the format of the wrapper that encases the video, taking just a fraction of the time to complete.

Conversion

Allesoft Free iPad Video Converter (Windows only) is one of the easier programs to use. All you have to do is drag and drop the video into the program Window and select “iPAd Video MPEG-4(*.mp4)” from the drop-down window. The program is free, but offers a “Pro” upgrade for a fee.

Handbrake (Mac, Windows, Linux) is one of the more popular free programs to use . It’s not at user friendly as the one above, but it works on Mac and Linux and you can use it to convert videos for use on an iPod, iPhone, and Apple TV in addition to the iPad.

Now, as I mentioned above, the conversion method takes a bit more time since it actually converts the entire thing to meet the desired audio and video specifications.

Non-Conversion

Avidemux (Mac, Windows, Linux) is a program that almost instantly makes videos available for playback on your iPad since it doesn’t convert the video it only changes the wrapper that encases it. Since it works on all platforms nobody has an excuse not to use it, especially the technologically-challenged.

Here’s how it works:

1. Load a video – File > Open > “Name of Video”.

2. Select “AAC” from the Audio drop-down menu.

3. Select MP4 from the Format drop-down menu.

4. Save your movie as “nameofmoviehere.mp4″

Example: Stooges.mp4

It take a little bit to finish, but nowhere near as long as it would take to convert it.

So no matter what method you choose you’ll end up at the same destination watching your favorite video on your iPad on the go.

Stay tuned.

[email protected] | @jaredmoya

Jared Moya
I've been interested in P2P since the early, high-flying days of Napster and KaZaA. I believe that analog copyright laws are ill-suited to the digital age, and that art and culture shouldn't be subject to the whims of international entertainment industry conglomerates. Twitter | Google Plus

I detect an agggressive thread here.. :) Well maybe if you nerds would check all that an iPad does before you bought one, geez. Don't just think cuz everyone has one that you need it too or it's the best tablet. If Apple was really the best company they would support every common movie file out there, or allow full codec packs to be installed like on your PC. Really companies could have solved all of these problems (stumbling blocks) years ago but they won't. The whole movie conversion for a mobile device is dumb. Most of my friends watch a movie once on their pad and delete it, not like at home where you can archive it if you want to watch it later. Maybe find out what formats play on your Pad and only download videos in those, for example .mp4 and .m4v for example. Boomer

Jared Moya

:-)

Mike

So the app has at least a 20% failure rate. Ok that helps. I will try a few more and see if they'll work. I'd like it to actually work. Converting with handbrake takes forever.

Yeah avidemux doesn't produce a file the ipad will play. Yes it turns it into a .mp4 file, yes Itunes sees it, and yes it'll sync to the ipad - but NO it won't play. Does anyone actually try out these "tips" before posting them on the site?

Chris

Of course we test things before we post them. I used avidemux myself to convert a bunch of stuff last week. Out of 10 files, only two refused to play on the iPad.