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how do i get movies on an external hard to play on an ipad pro?

I have movies on an external hard drive (4TB USB) and I will be traveling and want to play them on my iPad Pro... what cords/adapters and or apps do I need to do this?

Posted on Jan 24, 2017 7:41 PM

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Posted on Jan 24, 2017 8:42 PM

If they are on your laptop and part of your iTunes library, you can sync them to the iPad assuming they are in a format supported natively by the iPad.


Sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes on your computer using USB - Apple Support



Otherwise, you can use iTunes File Sharing to copy them onto an App on the iPad for playback.

About File Sharing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support


I'll second the VLC suggestion as its a great App and supports many video formats, beyond those that the iPad can natively play.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vlc-for-mobile/id650377962?mt=8

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Jan 24, 2017 8:42 PM in response to SweetestFish8

If they are on your laptop and part of your iTunes library, you can sync them to the iPad assuming they are in a format supported natively by the iPad.


Sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch with iTunes on your computer using USB - Apple Support



Otherwise, you can use iTunes File Sharing to copy them onto an App on the iPad for playback.

About File Sharing on iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch - Apple Support


I'll second the VLC suggestion as its a great App and supports many video formats, beyond those that the iPad can natively play.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/vlc-for-mobile/id650377962?mt=8

Jan 24, 2017 9:14 PM in response to SweetestFish8

If these movies/TV shows are purchased iTunes movie/TV content, then there is no way to remote device stream this content.


Apple coded the ability to stream iTunes purchased TV/Movie out of iOS sometime at some version of iOS 8.

I discovered this feature omission in iOS 9 when I started inquiring about this.

This was an undocumented and workaround feature, from iOS 5 to the last iOS 7 version update, to be able to stream iTunes purchased movie/TV content remotely from an external storage device, but Apple closed down, coded out this ability/workaround since, and it seems that Apple is not going to restore this ability anytime soon!

There is no way to do this any longer!

There is NOTHING you can do to get this to work!

This ability is gone!

Plus, with mobile, portable, WiFi hard drives and mobile flash drives, you are forced to use a drive maker's app to access these drives and the drive app is not capable of wirelessly streaming purchased iTunes TV/ Movie content as Apple's own DRMs have been preventing this, too!

The remote streaming ability was accessed through a workaround that allowed streaming of purchased iTunes movie/TV content though the iOS Safari web browser.

Apple closed up, coded out this workaround out of Safari during an early iOS 8 update, forever preventing protected, BUT PURCHASED, iTunes movie/TV from ever being streamed from a remote storage device.


Android devices do not have this limitation to be able to stream the same iTunes purchased content to their devices from a wireless WiFi remote storage device.


The only thing you can do is transfer movies from the drive to your iPad to watch the movies off of your iPad, now!


The wireless drive is just a storage vessel, now and not an external streaming device.


I have resorted to stop purchasing any more iTunes movie/TV content and going back to purchasing physical mulitiformat discs of movies/tv show and creating my own digital copies of DVDs (through DVD/Blu-Ray ripping software, which we can't discuss in these forums) that I can use with both my Seagate Wireless portable drives and wireless and lightning connected mobile, portable USB flash memory drives.

I can now directly stream all of my movie/TV content, once again, from external storage devices.


I still own the first generation iPad that still has iOS 5.1.1 that still has this capability. So, I can still stream movies from my Seagate Wireless hard drive to my 2010 iPad 1, but this is my only iPad that still can do this.


If you want Apple to restore this external streaming workaround feature/ability, send feedback here.


You mentioned you have a laptop computer

If you have iTunes on that laptop and have all of your video content stored in iTunes, if you find a way to generate a local Wifi signal, like from some sort of portable MiFi device, you CAN use the iTunes Home Sharing festure on both the computer and iPad to wirelessly stream over WiFi videos from the laptop to the iPad.

Other than this, there is no way to do this.


iPad Feedback


http://www.apple.com/feedback/ipad.html


Good Luck!

Jan 24, 2017 9:18 PM in response to SweetestFish8

FYI,


There are a few special storage devices for mobile devices. There are portable, bulit-in WiFi hotspot hard drives for mobile devices made by Western Digital and Seagate.


http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1330


http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=1660


http://www.seagate.com/consumer/stream/



There are special mobile lightning connected and built in WiFi Hot spot, USB flash drives made by SanDisk (now owned by Western Digital)


https://www.sandisk.com/home/mobile-device-storage/ixpand


https://www.sandisk.com/home/mobile-device-storage/connect-wireless-stick


http://www.adamelements.com/iKlips/iklips.html


Good Luck!

how do i get movies on an external hard to play on an ipad pro?

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