External Data Solution

Dirk Diggler · 15 Mar 2016 at 15:54

I'm going on holiday soon and want to have 3 iPads stocked up with plenty of movies for the long haul flight. The problem is the classic Apple problem... not anywhere near enough storage, and no microSD capability.

I've seen the Leef data solution, but reviews suggest it's buggy and slow. Is there any reliable solution out there?

bloodiedathame · 15 Mar 2016 at 16:31

Can you get an internet connection on the plane? Set up Plex media server at your house and stream it to your devices.

Dirk Diggler · 15 Mar 2016 at 16:34

bloodiedathame said:
Can you get an internet connection on the plane? Set up Plex media server at your house and stream it to your devices.

I have Plex set up but didn't think it would work on the plane.

Craig321 · 15 Mar 2016 at 16:34

A quick Google brings up a thing called KiwiBird on Amazon which gets fairly good reviews.

I can imagine the suggestion above of streaming working terribly, laggy/slow streaming etc.

MacRS4 · 15 Mar 2016 at 16:52

I use a 128Gb version of this, and it's fine.

Vengance · 15 Mar 2016 at 20:46

how about a seagate wireless plus hdd? 1tb

dlite · 16 Mar 2016 at 00:25

Download handbrake, click ipad template, set bitrate to ~1000 kbps and sound to 128kbps stereo and let it run compressing your video to smaller size. Video/audio quality should be decent with these settings and the resulting video only takes about ~500MB per hour.

2000kbps is already very good looking result for ipad screen, though takes twice the space.

edit:
I just tried it. My Core i5 3570k with 1000kbps abr setting for video and 128kbps aac audio with 1280x720 output resolution produced a 360MB file from a video of 43 minutes.

Conversion took about 25 minutes.

If you use x264's "faster" preset, time drops to about 17 minutes and "very fast" about 14 minutes at the expense of slight drop in image quality.

Dirk Diggler · 16 Mar 2016 at 09:28

I've got a 64GB SD Card and I'm starting to think it's going to be easier if I just buy an Android tablet for movie playback when traveling.

Apple really doesn't offer much of a solution for this.

dlite · 16 Mar 2016 at 22:10

Apple offers 64 and 128GB tablets...

Though I agree that they charge quite a bit for the extra space, even unfairly so.

sbi5ar · 17 Mar 2016 at 08:28

Get a RavPower Travel Router. They allow you to attach a HDD or a SD card and you can stream whatever is on them (using their own app on iDevices). This is what I use when I am travelling. The router also acts as a batter so it can power the HDD or you can use it to charge phones etc... Well worth it IMO and it only cost me £30-ish I think

Edit: just looking now, I have the RP-WD03 which will do as you ask (you just need a HDD or SD card extra)

Dirk Diggler · 17 Mar 2016 at 08:46

sbi5ar said:
Get a RavPower Travel Router. They allow you to attach a HDD or a SD card and you can stream whatever is on them (using their own app on iDevices). This is what I use when I am travelling. The router also acts as a batter so it can power the HDD or you can use it to charge phones etc... Well worth it IMO and it only cost me £30-ish I think

Edit: just looking now, I have the RP-WD03 which will do as you ask (you just need a HDD or SD card extra)

That looks interesting. I had a similar unit, but it was slow and could lose connection randomly. Hope you don't mind me asking a few questions...

Is this unit reliable, as in it won't randomly lose connection?
How long would it take to transfer 1GB file to my iPad?
Do I need to use a third party app with it?
How long does its battery last?

I'm going to look at a Samsung tablet today as I'm considering selling my iPad, however a gadget like that might just save me the trouble.

sbi5ar · 17 Mar 2016 at 13:18

String said:
Is this unit reliable, as in it won't randomly lose connection?

I haven't experienced this myself. I have used it whilst on long haul flights, whilst at the pool on holiday, and on the bus during my morning/evening commute. Not problems at all.

String said:
How long would it take to transfer 1GB file to my iPad?

I can't answer this. I don't transfer the files. I use their app and it allows me to browse the files on the external drive which I then stream to the iDevice so there is no copying. With this I haven't seen any lag in video etc... and there is little/no buffering at all.

String said:
Do I need to use a third party app with it?

There are two apps; RAV FileHub and FileHub Plus, both of which work with the device (the latter is what I use to stream and browse external drives attached to the router

String said:
How long does its battery last?

It would easily do a day by the pool for me and about a week worth of commuting for me. The battery is quite large (2-3x iPhone maybe). You'll get more battery if you use an SD card rather than a HDD that needs power etc...

The other benefit is that you can use this to share hotel wifi. So if a hotel has 1 device per room policy you make the router the "device" and share the connection with everything else. We have done this numerous times with 2 iPhones, 2 iPads, and a MBP.

Caged · 21 Mar 2016 at 08:31

How much storage space do you have? You can easily encode a movie down to a couple of gig and retain a more than decent image quality. I think you're over complicating this.

Dirk Diggler · 21 Mar 2016 at 08:37

Caged said:
How much storage space do you have? You can easily encode a movie down to a couple of gig and retain a more than decent image quality. I think you're over complicating this.

I think you're over simplifying it.

A couple of gig a movie would afford me around 4 movies on the ipad, and that's hardly going to last me 2 long haul flights and a couple of rainy days on holiday. I also need the space for my 3 week trips offshore (but you didn't know that as I hadn't mentioned it).

Anyway, problem solved as I've bought a Samsung S2 8" and 128GB card to replace the ipad.