ITunes, you bastard

Jetfire

Downloaded some postman pat for my son to watch when he wakes up in the morning. we are on holiday tomorrow and as Butlins doesn't give free WiFi so I can't YouTube it like we do at home now, I had to have something he likes. Downloads lovely but can I play it on anything else bar itunes? Can I I fuck...ideally, we'd have it on our Samsung galaxy tablet but can't evenue convert it without it being a massive hassle...grumble 

ICBM

Can't you just convert it to mp3 in iTunes? I do that with mine, I never use the Apple format.

Set 'import settings' to mp3 and then 'convert file' from the File menu.

Or is the file locked? They used to do that with some of them.


Edit - doh, read question . That only applies to music...

Jetfire

I'm not sure tbh, if have to have a look 

chrispy108

I assume it's a video, so ICBMs advise won't work.

You wont be able to play iTunes videos on an android phone. See what you can find on the Google play store. Or you can get a YouTube downloader.

JezWynd

Can you open it in Quicktime Player? It can open most Apple video formats iirc.

Fretwired

Is it an MV4 file? Try renaming it to MP4 - that will work if it's not a protected file. If it's protected then its iTunes.

bingefeller

VLC should play it.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html

ICBM

Ah sorry, misread it and thought you were asking about music. If it's a video format I use MPEG Streamclip.

Drew_TNBD

Welcome to closed eco-systems.

ICBM

Drew_TNBD said:

Welcome to closed eco-systems.

That's why I only use mp3 and mp4… they play on anything. The really funny thing is that the iPhone doesn't seem to like any other normal video format (eg avi or mov) either.

Jetfire

Yeah, changing the file extension doesnt work.  

maltingsaudio

Try this video convertor http://www.freemake.com

Troy

Jetfire said:

Yeah, changing the file extension doesnt work.  

You can't just change the extension and expect it to convert file type to the new extension name. 

Gagaryn

I presume it is a m4v in which case renaming to mp4 should work fine UNLESS the file has DRM in which case it's gonna be a hassle.

crunchman

Even if you use Apple products you are better of downloading from sites that sell MP4 (or MP3 for music) and importing.  That way you can play them on any device.  You are also not locked into Apple for life - which is why Apple use non-standard formats so they can lock you in.

Amazon are just as bad with ebooks.  Even if you have a Kindle buy the books direct from the publisher or from the Kobo store as EPUBs and then convert to the Amazon format.  Preferably buy a Kobo in the first place if you are looking for an ebook reader.

Maynehead

Obviously the correct solution would be to purchase an iPad.

bloodandtears

<patronize>Turn the tech off and be a parent</patronize>   ;-)

crunchman

Maynehead said:

Obviously the correct solution would be to purchase an iPad.

Not sure if you are being entirely serious but seeing the way my daughters (8 and 4) treat tablets it's cheap Android all the way.

Even the cheap ones aren't bad these days.  I've just bought 4 for our church for displaying song words/chords etc. and got £50 change over what a single iPad would have cost.  They aren't great but they are functional.  They would be fine for a kid.

Jetfire

Yeah,  I knew full well just changing the file exteniton wouldn't work, but someone suggested it so I thought I'd try it.

 Also, I am being a parent, if you'd even watched Timothy Goes To School at 5am, I'm doing him a favour! Lol

Troy

Jetfire said:

Yeah,  I knew full well just changing the file exteniton wouldn't work, but someone suggested it so I thought I'd try it.

 Also, I am being a parent, if you'd even watched Timothy Goes To School at 5am, I'm doing him a favour! Lol

Ah no problem. Working in IT support I have seen people change the extension to something completely different and expect it to open in a different application.

crunchman

These days a lot of people don't even seem to know what a file extension is.