AVI videos from iTunes don't sync/play on iPad, but via Camera Connection Kit - YES

Steve-

I can not explain it, but others have reported the same problem with .MOV files.

One thing to try is to copy the videos into iTunes Movies, select one and click on Advanced at the top of the screen. Click on "Create iPod or iPhone version". If successfully converted, it should transfer and play on the iPad.

Another approach is to convert the video format using a conversion program such as HandBrake. <Download HandBrake>

Fred

Steve-

It looks like no one knows why it works that way. It just does. I wonder if enough people provided feedback to Apple about the problem, they might fix it? Try <iPad Feedback>.

Did you try transfering the AVI and MOV files to iTunes on your computer, and converting them as I suggested above? Until Apple changes the system, conversion may be the only solution.

Fred

- "I wonder if enough people provided feedback to Apple about the problem, they might fix it?"

So unlikely it's sick...if there's one thing Apply doesn't care about much, it's compatibility with anything other than Apple hardware, software or file formats. The iPad could be EVERYTHING to EVERYONE if it wasn't for their stubborn, elitest attitude - starting with compatibility with the .avi format, since only 99% of videos are already there. But no, convert your massive video library instead to ruin your user experience, because what's in it for Apple? Nothing...so don't expect a fix anytime soon...

I was seriously becoming an Apple fan until I started to see how the systems and hardware are actually far more rigid and controlled than the PC world, which isn't at ALL what I thought the case to be!

AVI is a container format. It does not have a specific video or audio codec associated with it.

You can put almost any video or audio codec in it. So which ones is Apple suppose to support?

It is old (released in '92) and obsolete. It does not support as many features as newer formats(mp4, ogg, Mkv).

It is was almost only used by torrent &amp; pirate sites.

If you feel you just can't live without your pirated material(even though most torrent sites have switched to mp4), go to the app store and download a third party player.

Cinexplayer, avplayerhd, oplayer, etc.

AVI is still widely supported by recent cameras. Just to name a well-known example: Olympus PEN E-P3 (release year: 2011)

That is, while the movie pirate scene has indeed completely switched to MKV's and RMVB's, there is still use for AVI import. This is why Apple have also implemented importing it via the CCK.

"So unlikely it's sick...if there's one thing Apply doesn't care about much, it's compatibility with anything other than Apple hardware, software or file formats. The iPad could be EVERYTHING to EVERYONE if it wasn't for their stubborn, elitest attitude - starting with compatibility with the .avi format, since only 99% of videos are already there. But no, convert your massive video library instead to ruin your user experience, because what's in it for Apple? Nothing...so don't expect a fix anytime soon..."

As has been explained above, many (current) cameras use AVI either as their native video format or at least a second one when the user needs M-JPEG instead of H.264. This is why Apple has chosen to import it.

The problem with AVI's not coming from cameras is that these files can (and do!) have virtually ANYTHING in them. For example, the vastly outdated MSMPEG-4 format (an example of such AVI's is at http://mirrorblender.top-ix.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_1080p_s tereo.avi ). Why would Apple need to go through of ALL possible, even vastly outdated and rare formats to provide support for them? Again, currently, it's only cameras that use AVI's with predictable content format - unlike with old / pirated AVI's.

This has been answered before, and is answered above, but I'll also throw it down;

The built in video player on the iPad is built to play video using the built in hardware video decoding chip.

This chip saves battery power when decoding video, and is very effecient.

Apple thus limits how you can import video so that only compatible video plays easily.

The Movies app imports via iTunes, and iTunes will only allow Quicktime video; so you cannot import avi videos that way.

iTunes is rather grumpy about what types of files it allows, and it is not built to interogate video files to check their integrity. Quicktime files it does give a quick sniff of, and allow if they are the correct format.

The camera connection kit allows import or avi containers that have video encoded with MJPEG; this is a fairly common format for digital cameras.

This allows you to view your home videos that you shot on your avi-MJPEG camera.

When you plug in a camera, or SD card the iPad itself interogates the video files quickly, it it can read them it will allow them in, if it cannot it ignores them.

No other formats of avi can be viewed with built in apps or hardware on the iPad.

But...

There are though many apps that play many flavours of avi, rmvb, flv, mkv in the app store.

I recommend OPlayer.

You can import via the apps tab of itunes_ipad

Hope this helps.

Have you tried importing the video via the photos tab in iTunes/iPad?

If you sync photos via iTunes, you can tick the sync videos button.

I have been able to Sync avi-MJPEG via the photos tab before.

iTunes just does not allow avi in the "Movies" section.

This is the major pain with the term Movies versus Video in iTunes.

I get this very same issue cropping up all the time in the iMovie iOS forum.

People asking how to get video into the iPad that you can edit.

It has to be imported via the 'Photos' import in iTunes.

This will import the video to the 'Photos' app, and then you can play it, or edit it in iMovie iOS.

About time it was called the media app, not the photos app!

"There are though many apps that play many flavours of avi, rmvb, flv, mkv in the app store.

I recommend OPlayer."

Yup, OPlayer isn't bad.

Just keep in mind that

- OPlayer is especially weak at playing back any kind of WMV3 (WMV1/WMV2 are OK) or MPEG-2 TS (aka DVB) files

- its H.264 decoder is definitely weaker than that of AVPlayerHD / ProPlayer at 1080p

- it has no nice features like audio (volume boost, reverb etc.) or video (brightness, contast, saturation etc.) DSP's, unlike several other players (GoodPlayer, "It's Playing" etc.)

- its 1080p60 MTS support is definitely weaker than the best of the bunch

Also note that you must enable hardware MP4/M4V/MOV playback (it's disabled by default, enable at: Settings / Plugin / Use QuickTime) as it's disabled by default.

On another note, it has a very good MSMPEG4 (many legacy AVI's contain video streams in this format) and OGG Vorbis video decoder.

"PERHAPS THIS?!: The .avi movie NEVER MAKES IT into iTunes because iTunes cannot play an avi movie; therefore if it is not there, it can't be transferred. That must be it or something like that. (The avi movie I transfer from my Nikon is in iPhoto - and it plays in iPhoto - but since photo and video transfers to the iPad go via iTunes, and iTunes apparently can't bring-in avi, then it cannot act as the "bridge" in the way the CCK does."

This may also be the reason. Apple didn't want to make iTunes even support M-JPEG AVI's; this is why you can't just drag these AVI files into the Movies tab of iTunes.

While Apple do have the AVI demuxer / M-JPEG decoder code (at least for iOS), they didn't want to allow for playing them in iTunes to avoid getting "why my AVI file doesn't play"-type of complaints from users trying to play back AVI files with non-M-JPEG video streams. (For example, many of the "pirate" and other legacy AVI's contain MSMPEG-4 streams.) This is perfectly understandable on Apple's part.