The iPad Can Read Camera Footage, Not Bootlegs

I spend a significant amount of time every now and then converting movies and shows to an iPhone-friendly format. Quite understandably, the simple mention of "avi" (nothing to do with na'vi) by Apple on the iPad tech specs page got my hopes pretty high. Unfortunately, this is not what one might think. Far from me to explain to you what a codec is or how video works, but here is the deal, while the iPad will indeed be able to read certain avi files, its support is very limited. As posted by Apple:

Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

This is the format you get when filming on your point and shoot. In short, you'll be able to transfer what you filmed on your camera and watch it right away on your iPad. On the other hand, this has nothing to do with the Divx and Xvid format the movies you download via torrents come in, for these, you'll still have to convert. While the footage support is great, this is just making me realise how much of a pain Apple is with these video formats. The iPad, like Steve said, will be amazing to watch videos on the plane, but unless you're ready to drop $3 per episode, be ready to spend the night before your flight converting all your shows to mp4. I know they're protecting their revenues here, but they opened-up for eBooks, why not videos then?

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