Hi could someone help me please ? Ive just bought the new ipad and want to put some movies on it. I have already converted some movies using handbrake and tried to transfer them to my ipad and it just wont work. ive tried drag and drop and everything

Have you got them into your computer's iTunes (File > Add To Library) ? If so then you should be able to sync them to the iPad by connecting the iPad to your computer and selecting it on the left-hand side of your computer's iTunes, and on the right-hand side there should be a series of tabs, one of which should be Movies e.g.

If you select the Movies tab you should then be able to select and sync those films to the iPad's Videos app. If they aren't in a compatible format for the iPad then try Advanced > Create iPad Version and then try syncing those instead.

If you can't get them into your computer's iTunes (File > Add To Library doesn't work on them ?) then you will need to convert them into a compatible format first - which Handbrake should be able to do.

I think VLC still has an app for the Ipad. Check and see. I still have it on mine. Then you just go to apps in itunes and copy it to VLC - works well.

Sadly - no longer available - but there are other movie players.

We're kind of operating at the limits of what we can do because if you mention the source of these movies (we are trying hard to think these might be home "movies" of your kids playing in the pool) we may discover you are trying to do something illegal like having ripped a commercially protected movie and have to stop helping you per the terms of use of this web site.

Handbrake is third party software. iTunes video support was developed alonside Apple selling movies. Any support of video from other sources is likely just cream in terms of iTunes playing it. While I have seen it mentioned HB videos work in iTunes, it is possible you have selected some setting that makes iTunes reject the movies. I have seen mention of various media that was 'supposed' to work in iTunes but for some reason iTunes just didn't like the taste of a particular file. It can be very picky at times.

There are different versions of MP4 (e.g. bitrates, frame size) - did you use one of the iPad/iPod built-in presets ?

The ancient iOS version of VLC is one of the worst players, don't bother with it. There are tons of MUCH better players out there, some even free (for example, QQPlayer ( http://itunes.apple.com/app/qqplayerhd/id434585208?mt=8 ) or MoliPlayer ( http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/free-multimedia-player-moliplayer-ipad-fixed-a nd-enhanced-now-its-recommended )) but still vastly superior to VLC.

bluztoo wrote:

Sadly - no longer available - but there are other movie players.

Again, you don't lose much - VLC is really bad.

Haven't really used any of them including VLC - actually use netflix on the ipad more than anything. I was able to drop an mp4 into imovie on my ipad and see it there. This was something I had shot as avhcd and converted with turbo.264. Played fine. Probably not what you want for a movie player though.

Those of you who use other players, what do you reccomend? Just curious.

bluztoo wrote:

Haven't really used any of them including VLC - actually use netflix on the ipad more than anything. I was able to drop an mp4 into imovie on my ipad and see it there. This was something I had shot as avhcd and converted with turbo.264. Played fine. Probably not what you want for a movie player though.

Well, turbo.264 is indeed very nice to have - even for converting full-sized movies. (Nevertheless, TechRadar's latest roundup (see http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/6-of-the-best-video-converte rs-for-mac-1074303 ; also linked from another roundup at http://www.iphonelife.com/blog/87/benchmark-excellent-multimedia-converter-handb rake-vs-commercial-apps ) has shown it's still worse than HandBrake in most respects.)

All H.264 files (assuming they are H.264 level 4.1 or lower) are compatible with the built-in Videos app.

bluztoo wrote:

Those of you who use other players, what do you reccomend? Just curious.

It entirely depends on your needs. The top players (AVPlayerHD / ProPlayer, It's Playing, GoodPlayer) all have different strengths and weaknesses. I myself use It's Playing the most as I convert everything into MP4 and simply love the DSP's (brightness / volume / saturation boosting). (Its software decoders are definitely worse than those of AVPlayerHD / ProPlayer; however, MP4's are played back from hardware.)