There are only a few styles of movie files that you can load and play on your iPad through iTunes. Trying to add others, iTunes will stop you as you drop onto iTunes or when you sync your iPad.
Mac OS Computers can play most of the more popular movie file types in Quicktime, but there is a long list of movie media types that will not play. For just about anything outside of mp4 and m4v, we use VLC Media Player. This open source player will decode just about anything we throw at it and play in a variety of screen sizes.
Good news for the iPad owners, there is now a version of VLC Media Player for mobile devices now available. The free app will run on the iPad and newer iPhones.
Movies are added by connecting your iPad to iTunes, go to the Apps tab, scroll down to the File Sharing box and drag/drop your movies on the VLC folder. On the iPad, go to the VLC app where you will have a list of the movies you have installed to play. Deleting a movie can be done directly through the app without reconnecting to iTunes.
Wifi movie install isn’t supported yet, but movies downloaded as email attachments is. When you receive a movie inside of an email, tap and hold on the movie till the list pops up asking what app you want to launch the file in… of course, choose “VLC”.
We tried our iPad to external monitor out cable with no luck. Knowing the history of new features being added to the VLC Media software, we can assume that will be on the developer’s list to support for the iPad.
