I need some help with iTunes, please.

[5teve]

Hi guys,
Either I am going insane or my Mac and iPad 2 are jinxed. I just can't get movie files, book files or TV show files to make the cross over from my Mac desktop computer over into iTunes and from there to my iPad. Take right now for instance. My iPad is connected to my Mac Mini by a USB cable and when I open iTunes I can see, down the left hand side, Stephen Riley's iPad with a few icons next to it.
Meanwhile, I have Googled .... "How do I send movie files from my Mac to iTunes?" but when I follow the instructions, nothing happens.
In iTunes, in the left hand pane under Library, there are the usual categories starting with Music, Movies, TV shows etc but they are all empty except for "Books" which shows all the books that I want on my iPad. It is because the e-Books are there that I get really confused because it shows that somehow, the system seems to work.
Following the instructions that I have found when Googling I have tried all kinds of ways to move video files from my Mac to iTunes. I have tried doing a Drag & Drop from my desktop to "Movies" in the Library but nothing happened. I tried going to File - Add to library and then navigating to the correct file and then clicking "Continue" .... again, nothing happened.
I just don't know what else to try.
Any ideas?
Cheers,
Steve

 

[TheRambler]

Just a quick one Steve, what format are the files in that you are trying to transfer?

 

[5teve]

Hi Rambler & thanks for the reply.
The movie files are mostly in .avi format with some TV shows in .mkv
Ebooks are in either .ePub for my iPad or the format for my wife's Kindle.
I can watch all the movies and TV shows on my Mac with no problems.
If I need to change the format to one that iTunes and my Pad will more easily recognise, I can do that easily enough.

Cheers,
Steve

 

[dvdcatalyst]

Hi Rambler & thanks for the reply.
The movie files are mostly in .avi format with some TV shows in .mkv
Ebooks are in either .ePub for my iPad or the format for my wife's Kindle.
I can watch all the movies and TV shows on my Mac with no problems.
If I need to change the format to one that iTunes and my Pad will more easily recognise, I can do that easily enough.

Cheers,
Steve

AVI and MKV are formats not actually supported by the iPad, and unlike a Mac or a PC, you can not install additional codecs.

There are some video players in iTunes that do offer support for these files, however transferring them over needs to be done a bit differently.

This post should help:

http://www.ipadforums.net/ipad-help/32438-av-player-hd.html

To have the videos accessible in iTunes, you will need to convert them to a supported format. On the Mac, there are a lot of people who use Handbrake for their video conversions.

This post contains some information on that:

http://www.ipadforums.net/new-member-introductions-site-assistance/89534-how-put-dvd-ipad.html

The eBooks, the Kindle ones, if they are purchased directly from Amazon, they will not work through transfer. You will need to download the Kindle app for your iPad, and set it up with your wife's Kindle account. You can download the books then through that directly onto your iPad. Those eBooks are copy-protected.

App Store - Kindle

 

[5teve]

Those posts are brilliant, thanks, guys.
I can't work on it now but when I get back from our hols in 3 weeks I'll give it all a work out and see how I get on.
Maybe I havn't lost my marbles after all, lol
Cheers,
Steve

 

[dvdcatalyst]

You are welcome Steve,

When you get to it and have any other questions, just reply in this thread.

Cheers,

Mitch

 

[TheRambler]

Sorry Steve, looks like I was late back with a second reply.

Well done to both PavtubeVideo and dvdcatalyst for excellent replies, very helpful.

 

[buychina1223]

Thank you for giving me such wonderful info.