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Video Transcoding for the iPad
When I first started syncing pictures to my iPad, I noticed that videos didn't sync. After some research, it turns out that the video/audio format used by my Canon SD960 IS, I kind of put it on the back burner and ignored it. Now that I have an iPad 2, I bought iMovie and wanted to do a little video editing this weekend. Unfortunately the only clips that I had on my iPad were taken with my iPhone 4.
After a bit of futzing around with AppleScript, I slapped together 2 scripts to transcode my videos into 720 p and suitable for use on my iPad. The big issues I found is that QuickTime Player (the one with Snow Leopard) changed the AppleScript syntax and exports asynchronously. For non-techies, this means that the export basically happens in the background. This created a problem as I don't know when each export ends; I need this information so that I can change the date on the exported file to match the original file as well only running around 10 exports going at once (too many running basically slows down the system).
So here's what I did:
- Created a new folder on the Desktop called Movies and dragged all my movies from iPhoto.
- Created a second folder on the Desktop called NewMovies.
- Opened AppleScript Editor and used the following script and saved it as an application.
property exportFolder : (path to desktop folder as Unicode text) & "NewMovies:"
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The wait ends (for my iPad 2)
On Tuesday, while reading my morning news and Twitter feeds, Andy Ihnatko tweeted that he heard reports that Apple Stores were receiving a bunch of iPad 2s. Given my luck getting an iPhone 4 the day after release waiting in a relatively short line, I decided to give it a try. I arrived at the Fashion Valley Apple Store around 8:25 am to see a line and took that as a good sign. When I got to the end of the line, 2 Apple Store employees asked which iPad 2 I wanted and when I said the 32 GB Black WiFi one, one of the employees pulled out a stack of cards and handed me one with the model number written on it. Very cool, I was going to get an iPad 2 without more waiting! At about 9:05 am, I went instead, paid the Apple tax and left with my brand new iPad 2. I already had a smart cover, so I was all set.
Now that I have an iPad 2, was it worth it? You'll have to wait for my "review" (my reviews are pretty quick and not as in-depth as the well paid tech journalists).
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Review: Netflix for iPad
The other day my wife came home and asked about Netflix streaming as someone mentioned to her that she used her Wii to stream. I said that we could give it a try as it is only $8 per month. I signed up for the free trial and started playing with the iPad app to setup my instant queue and see how well it streamed.
The iPad app works, but really is an unpolished app. Within a few minutes of using it, I became frustrated with it. First off, when I tapped on an item, it didn't highlight as most iOS apps do; this is likely due to laziness as iOS provides a way to highlight an entire row and the app uses two columns so it separates the row and highlighting part of a row would have required extra work. Next the app was slow when I tapped on a selection so I wound up tapping more than once. This caused problems as it kept starting to play a selection as the second tap was queued up.
My problems didn't stop there; after a selection plays and you go back to the home screen, your location in the list is lost. So if I scrolled through the selections, found one, tapped it to view more, but accidentally tapped twice and it started played, when I cancelled out of it, my position was lost. This made the experience quite annoying.
When you scroll through the list, the last row said "Load More Titles". This is another aspect of what I consider poor programming or laziness. The more polished apps automatically start loading once the last row is displayed. It is actually quite easy to implement and saves the user a tap.
The app suffers from rotation issues as it gets quite confused and doesn't resize the list at times when you rotate the display. Further showing lack of polish is when I went to switch apps and showed the bottom bar, the main loading page came back up. Strange behavior for an app.
Pros
- Convenient way to add items to instant queue.
- Reasonable playback quality
Cons
- Unpolished application that suffers from some serious usability issues.
- Bugs cause some strange behaviors when rotating and switching apps.
Summary
While it is great to see that Netflix has come up with an iPad app, I would have expected more from a well recognized brand name. My view is that they either used inexperienced in-house developers or outsourced it to a company that needs some work on developing quality products. I hope that they continue to update the app and address some of the issues I've noticed.
The app is still usable to add items to the instant queue, but the process could be a bit cleaner.
The wait begins (for my iPad 2)
Like many tech geeks, I plan on getting an iPad 2. It isn't necessary for me to get one, but the increased speed, slightly reduced size, and smart cover just make it too cool not to get. I really don't have time to stand in long lines to get one (I did stand in a few hour line for my iPhone 4), so I figured I'd try to get one today.
I called a few local stores and of course, got nothing. When I was talking to my wife and I mentioned that there were 18 combinations, she suggested I just order it online to get what I wanted. That makes a lot of sense and I should have done it yesterday to get in line with the 2-3 week wait. Since I waited a day, I'm now at 3-4 weeks. Wow, that seems like an eternity in tech years!
I'm going to call Wal-Mart on Monday and see if they got anything in, but I'm not holding my breath. I've also been told that the Apple Store gets shipments everyday so I might try there later in the week. If I happen to score one early, then I can simply cancel my order. Why didn't I order first thing Friday morning and then cancel my order if I managed to get one? I did this with the iPhone 4, so what was I thinking? Maybe I was just overly optimistic about getting one.