transfer and play movies on ipad mini
I'm not succeeding with this, in spite of following so many different instructions.
First: how do I get videos (my own Quicktime or iMovies, other videos such as MP4, AVI, etc.?
Second: do all videos need to be converted to iTunes m4v format?
Third: is iTunes the only way to play videos/movies? Or is there an equivalent to, say, the good old standard QuickTime?
Fourth: Must I first transfer to iCloud in order to get videos on to the iPad mini? *I ask this because my primary Mac, is my Mac Pro but it is 2007 model and cannot be upgraded to Mt. Lion, hence, cannot fully access iCloud. I did buy Lion and tried upgrading it but it made such a mess of things I went back to Snow Leopard. That said, I did install and still have Lion on my MacBook Pro.
Fifth: Since I do have Lion on my MacBook Pro, I did connect the iPad Mini to it and that is when I began trying all the ways I could find to get movies from my MacBook Pro to the iPad. I even used my WonderShare Video Converter Ultimate for Mac and converted a few videos beforehand to m4v.
Sixth: If I did succeed getting the videos transferred, I cannot tell.
Finally, I began searching the App store for Movie or Video Players for the iPad. I downloaded two, Video Converter App; and Media Player. And I have iTunes on the iPad.
So, can anyone help me with this? How do I play movies on the iPad Mini; how do I figure out if they exist on the iPad (did I succeed in transferring them?)
When I open iTunes, after supposedly transferring a few, all I see are videos to buy. The Purchased button does not help since I did not buy these. I made them on my Mac.
Thanks for any assistance
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7)