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I am trying to setup a fully automated sync/push of movies from my NAS to my iPad.

My setup is the following I got a local NAS running Windows Server where I have Movies in a decicated specific folder in iPad format. Also I got an iPad which is WiFi connected to my local network where my NAS also is.

  • The sync/push must be completely automatic and the only thing I would need to do is to update the folder on the NAS.
  • I would prefer that it did not require my iPad to be pluggin in.
  • The sync must not rely on cloud services like Dropbox and so on. It should be 100% local Wifi so the speed would be optimal.
  • I would prefer that when I delete a movie from my NAS folder it should be removed on my iPad
  • The sync/push must be directly to right location on my iPad so the movie player works without further handling.
  • I do not have strong opinions on what movie player to use on the iPad
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  • Sounds like a good project for you to do in your free time. You have already set out the functional specs. Good luck mate - you can start coding now. Oct 29, 2014 at 13:48
  • I agree! I need some of the components before starting though
    – Anders
    Oct 29, 2014 at 13:53

1 Answer 1

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I found a working solution, which is not completely, what I asked for. One problem is that the iPad (or any IOS) does not leave anything open for ad-hoc wifi connections. What you need is an app. Since you do not want a generic open back door to your device, most of the app only work when they are directly activated. And many of them have a not-so-agile web interface for uploading.

What I did find was an excellent movie player called OPlayer Lite which is free (by showing adds). It has a feature that allows you to upload movies through wifi, with either http or ftp. So since I cannot get the fully automated way, this way seems best.

Next problem was that apperently all movie players on IOS will not play DTS sound due to a licensing issue. This means that all the high quality MKV movies you got only display the image. What you need is MP4 - an optimal format for movies on the iPad.

To get from MKV to MP4 you need a converter. If you do some googling you will probably come by Handbrake. An excellent, lightweight, but very neerdy converter. They try to make it easy, but there is just too many settings :)

What a did was I made a powershell script that could take all the mkv movies in a specified source folder (subfolders not supported) and convert that into iPad optimized MP4 movies. Ready to be copied to the iPad. Since the convertion proces takes a while, I made a scheduled task that converts all new movies every night.

$destinationFolder = 'C:\My-Mp4-Movies\';
$sourceFiles = Get-ChildItem -Path C:\My-MKV-Movies -Filter *.mkv

foreach ($source in $sourceFiles) 
{
    $filename = $source.Name.Substring(0,$source.Name.Length-4);
    $destination = $destinationFolder + $filename + '.mp4';
    if(Test-Path -Path $destination) { continue };
    $handbrake = "C:\Program Files\Handbrake\HandBrakeCLI.exe";
    $arguments = "-i " + $source.FullName, "-o " + $destination, " --preset=""iPad""";
    Start-Process -FilePath $handbrake -ArgumentList $arguments -NoNewWindow -Wait
}

Please note that the above script use a Handbrake preset called iPad. I am sure expert Handbrake users can come up with a better way to convert your high quality movies.

So in the end to get a new movie to the iPad you need to perform the following 3 simple steps

  1. Run the Powershell script to convert the movie
  2. Open the OPlayer Lite app and click the wifi button the lower left corner
  3. Copy the movies to the iPad using FTP or HTTP (I prefer FTP which you can make a powershell script for as well)

I hope you can use the above to enhance your iPad Movie experience :)

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