Tech Help - MP4 Question (1 Viewer)

[ConstruxBoy]

Finally getting around to ripping a ton of DVDs that I have. We installed a Western Digital My Cloud and have it on our home network. So after I rip the DVDs onto my PC, I can move them to the My Cloud. Then I can access them through the network on most devices (PC, Laptop, TVs, iPad, iPhone). Just have one older TV with a very basic Blu Ray player that doesn't connect to the network.

My question is how to take these movies on devices outside the network. I know I can copy the MP4s to the laptop and use that. But for an iPad or iPhone, what is the best way to get these movies viewable, even if I'm not on the network? Can I copy them from My Cloud to iTunes and then download to the device (assuming storage space)? Is there any other non-iTunes way to get these on an Apple device to play remotely?

Thanks for any and all help.

 

[Mr. Ected]

Not a complete expert on this, but look at PLEX.

 

[Mario Kart]

Don't copy into iTunes otherwise you'll be eating up hard drive space on the main computer. Sure, it would be in the cloud but then you'd have to buy cloud storage (more of it) and so on.

Instead, keep the mp4 file on your computer in a folder. Then, plug in the desired piece of tech (iPhone, iPad, whatever). When iTunes opens, click and drag the mp4 into the device in iTunes. iTunes does not store it but you can move files in and our of the device this way. The only downside is you have to plan on what you want to watch and not have them available in the cloud. What this does do is allows you to not have your space all filled up on each device with all the mp4's.

Example: you have 10 mp4's on your computer (or external hard drive depending how many you have). Plug in iPhone, click drag whichever file into it. Then, plug in iPad and click and drag a different mp4 into it. Take a couple minutes, maybe.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Plex is what I use for all my ripped/torrented media.

I store all ripped or torrented media on an external hard drive attached to our desk top which is where the Plex media server lives.

I can then access the movies/tv shows from anywhere that has a Plex App (Roku, Amazon Fire, PS4, laptops, IPADs, etc etc).

It also works outside the home where you can log into your Plex server from any where with an internet connection.

You can store and access TB's worth of data this way and it just keeps extending to the size of your hard drives.

 

[NewlyRetired]

Also, while MP4 is a fantastic container class, don't rule out using MKV as it gives the ability to play back full HD using H.264/AVC encoding which gives higher quality than what MP4 can support.  Note that there are some portable devices that can't play MKV files so always test first before doing any large amount of ripping.

 

[TheAristocrat]

Also, while MP4 is a fantastic container class, don't rule out using MKV as it gives the ability to play back full HD using H.264/AVC encoding which gives higher quality than what MP4 can support.  Note that there are some portable devices that can't play MKV files so always test first before doing any large amount of ripping.

This guy.  He knows things.

 

[ConstruxBoy]

Thanks guys!