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Jailbreaking the iPad2

By Patrick   Follow   Sun, 1 Apr 2012, 5:21pm   3,676 views   30 comments
In Menlo Park CA 94025   Watch (1)   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike  

I got my wife an iPad2 (5.0.1) and would like to play DVD's that we own on it.

Of course, Apple does not make this easy.

I think I have to jailbreak the iPad2 first, probably with this:

http://greenpois0n.com/?p=173

It says "Simply unzip the file, then install on your iOS A5 mobile device with one click of a button!"

Not simple at all, and not clear. Do I download their file to the iPad2 directly? If so, how do you unzip it?

If you download it somewhere else, then how does it get to the iPad2?

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1. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 203 threads 4,407 comments Davis, CA

   1   5:45pm Sun 1 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Why would you need to jailbreak? I rip DVD using anyDVD then process them with Handbrake into MP4. I usually use the High profile instead of the iPad preset. I usually just leave the movie files on my desktop machine and use AirVideo app to stream them to the iPad. This is 95% of my watching. But I can also copy them onto the iPad with iTunes for air travel.

2. scungilli Follow Befriend 8 comments

   2   5:35am Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   This is one reason I bought my HP Touchpad on eBay - just as good as iPad2, way cheaper ($230 with handy charger stand, case, and bluetooth keyboard) and, with Cyanogenmod 9 running Android 4 ICS, able to download torrents directly. Can't believe how great it is, actually, and am thankful HP decided to blow them out. The HP WebOS wasn't bad but the new Android is killer. Got just what I was hoping for in a pad -- excellent quality, cheap, fast, and versatile. Had no desire to ask the ghost of Steve Jobs "May I? May I?"

3. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 203 threads 4,407 comments Davis, CA

   3   9:39am Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Also, with supported streaming options these days, I find I rely less and less on my DVD and local copies. Netflix for all it's many flaws, has a pretty broad selection of foreign movies. Increasingly I find I can watch their stuff in HD at better quality and greater convenience than DVD. But as I said, my #1 app right after I bought the first-gen iPad was AirVideo. I was thrilled I could watch from my collection without having to transfer things around. And some of my collection is in MKV or other "odd" formats, but AirVideo can stream ANY format the PC can read on the fly without tedious offline re-encoding. One less "progress bar" and file copy session is always welcome. Thanks to it registering the server upstream, I can even watch from outside the house although it was blocky under DSL it wasn't until I got U-Verse it became viable.

4. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

   4   9:47am Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Vicente says I rip DVD using anyDVD then process them with Handbrake into MP4. Thanks! I will try that today. We are actually flying to DC tomorrow so this jailbreak thing is for watching movies on the plane. I'm a little confused about getting the resulting mp4 to the iPad though. So first I import it into iTunes on a laptop, and then connect the iPad to the laptop? Then you sync the two different iTunes or something? And AirVideo is just for streaming, right? So that won't help for the plane. I'm used to doing everything on a command line and having root access, so being in Mac jail is uncomfortable to say the least. Personally I'd be happier with the HP Touchpad but I didn't even hear of it until this thread.

5. DaveM_Renter Follow Befriend 7 threads 37 comments San Clemente, CA

   5   1:32pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Patrick, you can have it a lot easier. I don't assume you're hoping to stick the DVDs into the ipad, because even jailbraking won't help there, ha ha - I assume you have already ripped the movie from your DVD using something like Handbrake? I purchased an app called "Azul Media Player" - it plays any file format. I use it to play videos downloaded from Youtube, as well as home videos I made myself. It works both on iphone4 and on ipad2. My wife and I use it both. You still need iTunes to copy the files onto the ipad of course (scroll down in the apps tab and then click on Azul and then "Add") but at least you don't have to worry about getting the video format exactly right for it to play with the apple players. And BTW, jailbraking won't help you at all - it's just a lot of work and then allows you to download apps Apple doesn't approve of. But for watching video files you don't need to do that.

6. DaveM_Renter Follow Befriend 7 threads 37 comments San Clemente, CA

   6   1:37pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   I understand why one would jailbrake an iphone, but I really don't see the point on an ipad - and you're definitely right, it's not straightforward at all. I've done it once for an iphone 3G (to use it while in Europe for 9 months), and I hope I will never have to do it again...

7. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

   7   1:51pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   The first thing I wanted to do was download some test mp4 on my wife's iPad and play it, but how do you download anything? In a normal browser like Firefox you can simply click on something and it will ask if you want to download it. Safari won't do that. And it looks like you can't get Firefox for the iPad either. So I figured if I could jailbreak the iPad, I could then download whatever file I wanted onto it. I haven't ripped any movies from DVD yet. I'll try Handbrake today.

8. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 203 threads 4,407 comments Davis, CA

   8   2:15pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Patrick says I'm a little confused about getting the resulting mp4 to the iPad though. So first I import it into iTunes on a laptop, and then connect the iPad to the laptop? Then you sync the two different iTunes or something? Yes. iTunes is how you synch movies or music to any Apple device. The iPad is no different than iPod. Easiest is just to create a special folder for the content in question, then there's a selection in iTunes "Add to Library". I do whole folders because it's just less tedious than picking individual files to import. Once iTunes on your desktop/laptop knows about the content, hook up your device and click on it. There'll be a tab for movies where you can check & uncheck which ones you want synced onto that device. I have a bunch of kid movies on my iPad for Junior to watch on the plane, it's really much easier than it sounds.

9. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 763 threads 7,706 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

   9   2:28pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Patrick says I got my wife an iPad2 (5.0.1) and would like to play DVD's that we own on it. Of course, Apple does not make this easy. Could you just rip the DVDs and play the .mpg4 file?

10. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

    10   2:43pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Dan8267 says Could you just rip the DVDs and play the .mpg4 file? I'd like to, but first attempts to install Handbrake have failed because my wife's Mac is not Intel, and my own Ubuntu Linux laptop is Jaunty. Handbrake does not support either of them: http://handbrake.fr/downloads.php The old version of Handbrake for Jaunty is not available either: wget http://dl.dropbox.com/u/56460/Handbrake/HandBrake-0.9.4.tar.bz2 2012-04-02 14:35:09 ERROR 404: NOT FOUND. An inauspicious start.

11. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 203 threads 4,407 comments Davis, CA

    11   3:02pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Try here: http://www.videohelp.com/tools/HandBrake/old-versions#download, Or here for Macintosh: http://oldmacapps.com/

12. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

    12   4:52pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   I thought I'd be clever and install VLC on Ubuntu Linux, because that supposedly can export DVD's directly as mp4 files, but I always get this error when trying to export: [0xa2d1d1c] stream_out_standard stream out error: no mux specified or found by extension [0xa2d1b24] main stream output error: stream chain failed for `transcode{vcodec=h264,vb=0,scale=0,acodec=mp4a,ab=128,channels=2,samplerate=44100}:file{dst='fatboy'}' [0xa2d5384] main input error: cannot start stream output instance, aborting Google is not very useful in figuring this out.

13. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

    13   5:41pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Vicente says The iPad is no different than iPod. It is different though. The iPod does not have its own copy of iTunes. The iPad does.

14. EBGuy Follow Befriend 4 threads 2,095 comments

    14   5:44pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Bitorrent for iOS -- is there an app for that?

15. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

    15   6:06pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Steve Jobs would rise from the dead and censor it.

16. humbleEngr Follow Befriend 8 comments

    16   7:14pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   the best place to look (although more technical) for jailbreak info is the dev team blog: http://blog.iphone-dev.org/ the next best place (and much easier) is iclarified: http://iclarified.com/entries/index.php?caid=2&scid=30&seid=16 I got tired of keeping my iphone jailbroken and eventually went android on everything, but do remember that once you jailbreak you have to be super careful about NOT UPGRADING the os until the dev team makes an official release for the latest os. one thing i remember was that it's much easier to jailbreak using a mac than with windows or linux

17. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 763 threads 7,706 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

    17   7:41pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Patrick says Dan8267 says Could you just rip the DVDs and play the .mpg4 file? I'd like to, but first attempts to install Handbrake have failed because my wife's Mac is not Intel Rip the DVDs on a PC then copy them to the IPAD over a wireless network.

18. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 763 threads 7,706 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

    18   7:55pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Actually, why would you want to watch a movie on an IPAD or any other tablet? Build a nice, cheap, energy efficient home theater PC (HTPC) with an HDMI output and watch your DVDs on a large screen plasma. First, get a nice HTPC style case. Then get a reliable motherboard with built in HDMI and dual processor support. You don't need a powerhouse machine. Get two reasonably price CPUs, a couple of Western Digital green drives, and whola! I built a HTPC for about $500 three years ago with the above equipment. Should be even cheaper to do now. And it's got 1.5 TB of storage. Plenty for high-def videos of all my favorite and classic TV shows and movies. And it's very quite because it doesn't generate much heat, so the fans can run slow. It's energy efficient, so I keep it on all the time. And it's on my wireless network, so I can play videos on any machine without copying them. It runs Windows XP x32 with 2.75 GB of system memory. And the two 3.0 GHz AMD Athlon II X2 250 processors are more than enough to render two high-def videos simultaneously even when both are being read from a triple-encrypted drive. And the OS doesn't even struggle when doing this. You could probably built the system I have for $200 today. And it would save you a lot of headaches. Then you can use your tablets just as smart I/O devices. I image even an IPAD can play a .mp4 file. [Side note for non-techies: .mp4 stands for MPEG-4, which is a video codec. .mp3 stands for MPEG-2 Layer 3, which is the high definition audio segment of the MPEG-2 standard. The extensions are a bit confusing because marketers choose them.]

19. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 203 threads 4,407 comments Davis, CA

    19   8:09pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Dan8267 says Actually, why would you want to watch a movie on an IPAD or any other tablet? Build a nice, cheap, energy efficient home theater PC (HTPC) with an HDMI output and watch your DVDs on a large screen plasma. Can't carry that on a PLANE, which was the question.

20. Vicente Follow Befriend (8) 203 threads 4,407 comments Davis, CA

    20   8:11pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Patrick says It is different though. The iPod does not have its own copy of iTunes. The iPad does. Well yes, but in this context it doesn't matter. The copy of iTunes on the desktop/laptop is one you use to download content into it in this case. Just try it with a file. If you need an example file, provide an upload location and I'll provide.

21. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 763 threads 7,706 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

    21   8:56pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   Vicente says Can't carry that on a PLANE, which was the question. Ah, didn't read that post. I usually go low-tech on planes. Just a book. Since I never have the time for paperware except when on a plane.

22. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

    22   9:00pm Mon 2 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Vicente says Well yes, but in this context it doesn't matter. The copy of iTunes on the desktop/laptop is one you use to download content into it in this case. Just try it with a file. OK, I'll try that.

23. RG Follow Befriend 1 threads 75 comments San Jose, CA

    23   7:03am Tue 3 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   .mp4 is not a video codec. Its a file extension which indicates a container format. Even if you said "MP4" is a video codec, you would still be wrong. Container format's are simply a way of muxing audio/video and meta data together. They are not the actual codec themselves. For non-techies codec stands for "Compression/Decompression". In any case, for an iPad/iPhone or any other iDevice you want to have a simple or main (or high for newer devices like the 1080p aTV) profile H.264 compressed video with AAC audio in a MP4 container... ;)

24. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 763 threads 7,706 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

    24   11:51am Tue 3 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   RG says .mp4 is not a video codec. Its a file extension which indicates a container format. I said stands for. The extension indicates the standard for humans. Then programs can parse the header. Btw, I've written an MPEG encoder and decoder. I understand the spec and what it means. RG says For non-techies codec stands for "Compression/Decompression". It's better to think of the streams as "encodings" rather than "compression". Encoding entails many more ideas.

25. RG Follow Befriend 1 threads 75 comments San Jose, CA

    25   4:18pm Tue 3 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Funny I've worked on several different encoders/decoders but I wouldn't go so far as to say I wrote one by myself. One of my past jobs was part of a team developing a HW based H.264 endcoder/decoder. And my point was .mp4 does not stand for MPEG-4. You might get by with saying it "stands" for MPEG-4 Part 14 (which defines the extension and the container format), but it most certainly does not "stand" for the video codec. There are multiple codecs for both audio and video that can be placed inside the MP4 container. Just telling someone to use a ".mp4" is ambiguous and not very helpful. More specifically, to patrick's problem. If he encodes it as a high profile H.264 it won't play on his ipad. That's why handbrake is the best tool for creating videos to play on the iPad. It has all the correct presets for iDevices.

26. Dan8267 Follow Befriend (16) 763 threads 7,706 comments Boca Raton, FL Premium

    26   4:31pm Tue 3 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Protected   http://www.hometechanswers.com/mp3/how-mp4-works.html .mpg = MPEG-2 video file .mp3 = MPEG-2 Layer 3 audio file .mp4 = MPEG-4 video file The 3 in mp3 stands for the layer. The 4 in mp4 stands for the version of the MPEG standard, not the layer. That's all I'm saying. And yes, the extensions are confusing because they imply that .mp4 is the successor of .mp3, which it isn't. RG says Just telling someone to use a ".mp4" is ambiguous and not very helpful. If I had to choose between downloading a .mp4 file or a .avi file of the same video, same resolution, I'd go with the .mp4 file. It probably is of higher quality for the size. I can't be sure of that, but 95 of 100 times, I'll be right. Furthermore, if you find that you can play .avi files fine in your copy of Media Player Classic, but can't play .mp4 files, then you have an old version of Media Player Classic that doesn't support the newer format and you need to get the latest.

27. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

    27   9:00am Wed 4 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Success! I installed bittorrent on a Mac, got an avi file, and then installed the free FlexPlayer app on the ipad, and transferred the .avi file from the Mac to the iPad with FlexPlayer's interface to iTunes on the Mac. FlexPlayer seems to play .mp4 and .avi files equally well. The hardest part was figuring out how to view the file transfer box in FlexPlayer. The file transfer function is hidden at the bottom of the FlexPlayer app for some reason. Worked very well. So now I have a system and didn't need to jailbreak the iPad after all.

28. RG Follow Befriend 1 threads 75 comments San Jose, CA

    28   10:40am Wed 4 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   The one issue with using third party players like FlexPlaye or VLC is that they generally consume more battery life. They are SW based decoders that don't take advantage of the built in low power HW H.264 decoder on the A5 chip. I've never bothered to look for a comparison but I'd bet you will "only" get 5 hours of battery life playing full D1 quality .avi files....

29. Patrick Follow Befriend (54) 5,188 threads 6,157 comments 46 male Menlo Park, CA

    29   12:52pm Wed 4 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   Good to know about the battery life. Seems to be a worthwhile tradeoff so far.

30. scungilli Follow Befriend 8 comments

    30   5:59am Fri 6 Apr 2012   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like   Dislike   As I've noted before, the HP running Android 4 ICS is a way more convenient, cheaper and less restrictive solution.