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Stupid question: how to put my video collection on my Ipad?

TomOSeven

TomOSeven

Suspended
Original poster
Jul 4, 2017
571
699
Hi all,

I have a large collection of videos and I want to put part of it on my Ipad.

Here's the process on Android:

Connect in my phone via USB, drag and drop the files, done.
The folder structure is maintained and thus navigating the files in VLC is really easy.

If I do the same on my Ipad, things are much more complicated.

Connect my Ipad via USB, open Itunes on my computer, click on the Ipad, navigate to the file sharing pane, navigate to the VLC app, drag the files onto Itunes, done.

Except, its not done. Because the Ipad doesn't retain the original folder structure, the files are all over the place.

Say the original folder structure is this:

Videos -> TV > Seinfeld > Season 1 > Episode 1.mkv

Now on my Ipad, there will be six different shows all called Seinfeld. One will only contain S03E05, one will randomly have most of season 1 and bits of pieces of season 6, and some episodes will be under 'untitled show'.

The issue isn't with VLC, when I use the official video app, it has the same problem, except half my files won't work, period.

Is there a way to maintain the folder structure, maybe with the Files app?

Ios is the only operating system that's ever caused these issues, MacOS / Android / Windows / Linux / Raspbian / the firmware of my old mp3 player could all use the tried and tested folder system, only Ios is the odd one out.

Thanks for your help!
 
You could give Documents by Readdle a go, I usually connect wirelessly to my Mac with Documents via an SMB share and download the files I want. Then you could either watch them directly on Documents if the format is supported or share the files to VLC.

Best success!
 
TomOSeven said:
Hi all,

I have a large collection of videos and I want to put part of it on my Ipad.

Here's the process on Android:

Connect in my phone via USB, drag and drop the files, done.
The folder structure is maintained and thus navigating the files in VLC is really easy.

If I do the same on my Ipad, things are much more complicated.

Connect my Ipad via USB, open Itunes on my computer, click on the Ipad, navigate to the file sharing pane, navigate to the VLC app, drag the files onto Itunes, done.

Except, its not done. Because the Ipad doesn't retain the original folder structure, the files are all over the place.

Say the original folder structure is this:

Videos -> TV > Seinfeld > Season 1 > Episode 1.mkv

Now on my Ipad, there will be six different shows all called Seinfeld. One will only contain S03E05, one will randomly have most of season 1 and bits of pieces of season 6, and some episodes will be under 'untitled show'.

The issue isn't with VLC, when I use the official video app, it has the same problem, except half my files won't work, period.

Is there a way to maintain the folder structure, maybe with the Files app?

Ios is the only operating system that's ever caused these issues, MacOS / Android / Windows / Linux / Raspbian / the firmware of my old mp3 player could all use the tried and tested folder system, only Ios is the odd one out.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

FileBrowser will retain the folder structure. Wireless connect & copy via SMB.
 
Can I assume then that the standard Files app doesn't retain folder structure?

I can't test that right now.
 
TomOSeven said:
Can I assume then that the standard Files app doesn't retain folder structure?

I can't test that right now.
Click to expand...

If you’re sharing via iCloud then it will retain the folder structure. It’s not really meant to be used offline.
 
A.R.E.A.M. said:
I’m an android user but i do have the ipad. I have infuse pro.

Would you mind laying out how i can use infuse pro to get videos on the ipad? Much appreciated.
Click to expand...

I also use Infuse.

  • Open Infuse on the iPad and select Settings icon.
  • Select "+ Add Files"
  • That gives you a URL you can connect to with a browser on a machine your network.
  • The browser opens up to an Infuse web page showing the folders in Infuse on your iPad (I create those first)
  • On the web page, click "+" in the upper right and an Explorer (PC) window opens
  • Browse to videos to add, select them, and hit "Open"
  • Videos are copied over
  • Close the Add Files window on Infuse when copying is complete
 
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nPlayer Plus here with folder and subfolder support!

I organize all my media nicely on my iPad Pro 512 GB.
 
akash.nu said:
If you’re sharing via iCloud then it will retain the folder structure. It’s not really meant to be used offline.
Click to expand...

Oh my, I really misunderstood what the Files app did.

I thought it were a file explorer for local files, not for Icloud files.
 
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AutomaticApple said:
I also use Infuse Pro. I highly recommend it!
Click to expand...

Except for the fact that it is pretty damn slow, especially if you try to transfer files using the Browser it completed just 10% in 1 Hour for a 9.5GB MKV file. I dont know why people recommend this so high ?
 
augustya said:
Except for the fact that it is pretty damn slow, especially if you try to transfer files using the Browser it completed just 10% in 1 Hour for a 9.5GB MKV file. I dont know why people recommend this so high ?
Click to expand...

Something's not right there - I just transferred a 860MB mp4 file using the Chrome browser on my Win10 laptop to my 10.5 iPP in 140 secs., a typical speed I always see when transferring much larger videos.
 
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sparksd said:
Something's not right there - I just transferred a 860MB mp4 file using the Chrome browser on my Win10 laptop to my 10.5 iPP in 140 secs., a typical speed I always see when transferring much larger videos.
Click to expand...

what is the fastest way then in Infuse ?
 
TomOSeven said:
Hi all,

I have a large collection of videos and I want to put part of it on my Ipad.

Here's the process on Android:

Connect in my phone via USB, drag and drop the files, done.
The folder structure is maintained and thus navigating the files in VLC is really easy.

If I do the same on my Ipad, things are much more complicated.

Connect my Ipad via USB, open Itunes on my computer, click on the Ipad, navigate to the file sharing pane, navigate to the VLC app, drag the files onto Itunes, done.

Except, its not done. Because the Ipad doesn't retain the original folder structure, the files are all over the place.

Say the original folder structure is this:

Videos -> TV > Seinfeld > Season 1 > Episode 1.mkv

Now on my Ipad, there will be six different shows all called Seinfeld. One will only contain S03E05, one will randomly have most of season 1 and bits of pieces of season 6, and some episodes will be under 'untitled show'.

The issue isn't with VLC, when I use the official video app, it has the same problem, except half my files won't work, period.

Is there a way to maintain the folder structure, maybe with the Files app?

Ios is the only operating system that's ever caused these issues, MacOS / Android / Windows / Linux / Raspbian / the firmware of my old mp3 player could all use the tried and tested folder system, only Ios is the odd one out.

Thanks for your help!
Click to expand...

There's an amazing tool called iFlicks2. You can throw in MKVs, it will convert the container format into mp4 and you can add all the metadata in a perfectly organized way, so that you will automatically have everything with cover art and sorted by show and season.
 
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chfilm said:
There's an amazing tool called iFlicks2. You can throw in MKVs, it will convert the container format into mp4 and you can add all the metadata in a perfectly organized way, so that you will automatically have everything with cover art and sorted by show and season.
Click to expand...

Looks like there is an iFlicks 3 as well.
 
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chfilm said:
There's an amazing tool called iFlicks2. You can throw in MKVs, it will convert the container format into mp4 and you can add all the metadata in a perfectly organized way, so that you will automatically have everything with cover art and sorted by show and season.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the recommendation. Something irks me about the prospect of spending 20 € for such rudimentary functionality.
 
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I drop movies into smart converter which converts them to the right format and puts them into itunes, then sync the ipad with itunes, very simple.
 
isnt is unnecessary to convert mkv to another format? that is a one job more to do while mkv is just a container keeping all the original info without need to convert files to some form for a specific purpose and probably also lose something with the conversion? vlc plays mkv, so i dont see a reason to convert them.
 
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mrex said:
isnt is unnecessary to convert mkv to another format? that is a one job more to do while mkv is just a container keeping all the original info without need to convert files to some form for a specific purpose and probably also lose something with the conversion? vlc plays mkv, so i dont see a reason to convert them.
Click to expand...
Just because it’s nicer to have everything inside the regular TV app instead of having to use VLC. Also I think transfer times are faster like this through iTunes.
There ain’t any visible quality loss. I think all that iflicks does, is changing the container format, as it Needs maybe 20 seconds for an entire tv show episode.
 
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