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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 11:03 am 
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OK, so I have never owned an apple device or used itunes in my life. I recently won an iPad in a local TV station drawing and now I am trying to figure out how this all works. For a little background; I have a WHS2011 machine up and running as well as an upgraded EX470 that is holding all of my critical data until Drive Pool is out of beta. I have an HTPC running Win 7 and a couple xbox 360 extenders. I also have a linksys extender in the garage but I am not going to worry too much about that one. I picked up the new iPad yesterday and took it to the apple store to exchange it for a black one as well as upgrade to the 32 GB model.

First of all, I would like to be able to transfer movies from the server to the ipad to watch on trips. I currently have most of my DVDs ripped to DVR-MS file and was thinking I would convert them all to an MP4 file that the 360s and the ipad could play. I was thinking I would use My Movies to rip all of my blurays to BDMV + MP4 so I could watch them on the extenders as well as pull them off to the ipad if needed. Last night I was trying to figure out how to transfer an MP4 that I was messing with over to the ipad but I could not seem to get it to work. I installed itunes on my laptop and tried to transfer the file and it didn't seem to do anything. I tried to add it to the collection and there was no response by the software indicating that anything had changed.

Another related question... For this setup, am I going to need to install itunes on my server or can I just keep it on the laptop and have it monitor the Movies folder? I would also like to be able to transfer copies of my music to the ipad while leaving the originals stored on the server. I'm not sure if affect the answer to the question or not.

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 2:22 pm 
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I found this article about file sharing:

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4094

Does the built in video player only support videos purchased through itunes? Do I need to install a different player that supports file sharing?

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 3:14 pm 
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WHS or the MSS aren't really relevant to your question, which is really about how to use iTunes. I have synced videos to my iPod. The videos must first exist in my iTunes library, which means they have to be transcoded from whatever their original format was into the H.264 format supported by iTunes, then added to the library. Once the videos are in the library, then just use iTunes to sync them to your ipod/IOS device.

I would install Handbrake and VLC on one of your Windows machines to perform the transcoding.

http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:09 pm 
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So you are saying the issues I was having transferring the H264 MP4 to the ipad was that it was not a compatible format? I couldn't even get it to show up in the library. When I tried to add it, I didn't get a warning saying it was not compatible.

I think the general point of my questions is home server related, I am wanting to get the aforementioned setup working with itunes and my home server and I am not quite sure what the best way to go about it is, I am not that familiar with how itunes works. I guess the meat of the question is "do I need to install itunes on my server."

I will try to encode some other files and see if I have any better luck.

Now, another question..... Is there a way to be able to access my shared folders on my server from the ipad when connected to the network? I am assuming this is going to take another app?

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PostPosted: Fri Nov 18, 2011 4:31 pm 
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The file needs to be added to an iTunes library that is managed by an iTunes client running on a Windows or Mac computer. You cannot copy files directly to the iPad as it does not expose its file system. Once you have added the files to the iTunes library then you would connect your iPad to that computer and use iTunes to sync the iPad. That sync process will transfer the files to your iPad.

Leave WHS out of it for now. You need to crawl before you try to walk.

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PostPosted: Mon Nov 21, 2011 5:18 pm 
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As Cliff points out, the iPad is designed to only get its movies from syncing with iTunes. The problem is that iTunes is not designed for WHS. I think it's more trouble than it's worth to try maintain iTunes on the WHS. I've made a few tries in the past but gave up as it was too much effort for the benefit. I do have a mainly Mac environment and running iTunes on my Mac was a better/easier solution. Apple really has done a pretty good job at making iTunes a reasonable way to manage multiple iPads, iPods and iPhones.

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