Newcomer - not happy with iPad

[pdanes]

scifan57 - the videos are downloads from Youtube. The language school I am attending has a website with instructional videos for each week's lesson - words and phrases - but they are all simply embedded Youtube links. I wrote a Python script to scrape the site and extract URLs of all the videos, then download them, again, so I could watch them offline. Downloading one at a time (as I tried initially) was a monumental pain in the fundament, so I looked up some Python tutorials and taught myself enough to do a bit of amateur scraping. I pull off the entire set for whatever module I am currently studying - 16 lessons at a time, and have them available (theoretically anyway, when I can get something to work) to study in spare moments, usually commuting or waiting for something/someone.

 

[NSquirrel]

I did look at VLC, but I do not think that it will play the files randomly.

With nplayer, you are almost there to do what you want to do.

 

[pdanes]

Tried hooking to PC again. Downloaded and installed a new version of iOS, offered by iTunes, but no improvement. It looks to me like the Box app may be hosed as well, because I can no longer log into it. The credentials are correct, since they work on all the PCs I am using (three of them running on my desk right now, all with the desktop Box service loaded and running), and when apps like Nplayer ask for the credentials to get into Box, they work there as well. But the actual Box app takes the credentials, munches for a bit, then disappears and the 'desktop' of the iPad appears. When I tap the Box icon, the process starts again. Never connects properly or opens, though. And Nplayer is extremely slow to open each video, and still stops when I go to airplane mode. Apparently it is still downloading every video I want to play. Besides being unusable offline, even online it is not good - 10 - 15 seconds waiting for each 4-second video to start. Your suggestion to try making the files local seems like the way to go, but I can't talk to Box to do so. I will try uninstalling Box. If I put the videos in something other than Box, is there a way then to get Nplayer to download and keep them? Is iTunes a good intermediate storage place? Is there some other way to get the videos into the iPad?

 

[pdanes]

And iTunes, despite doing the iOS upgrade (so they're obviously communicating) still refuses to show the contents of the iPad. I see nothing that will open it. Maybe I'm just stupid, but I can't find anything in the program that will open the iPad, the way a normal USB device like a flash drive appears.

 

[NSquirrel]

A new approach to avoid the Box as you have windows machines.

Create a shared file on one of the windows PC. Copy the videos into the shared folder. In nplayer, with the network tab, connect possibly via SMB and then pull the videos into nplayer.
Once the files are in ‘local’ in nplayer, they will stay there until you delete them.

 

[NSquirrel]

I meant a shared folder, not shared file. Sorry.

 

[pdanes]

And more fun. The Windows dialog that normally appears for a USB flash drive popped up on my PC that has the Lightning cable connected, and when I accepted that, opened a window into the iPad, going down into Danes - iPad -> Internal Storage -> DCIM -> 100Apple. There is one video and one picture. The vid is one of the tutorials, the image is a picture I took with the iPad several weeks ago. But I see no way to get to that folder or whatever it is in the iPad from any of the video players.

When I tap the folder icon on the iPad's desktop, it opens a window with something like a set of folders along the left side. There is iCloud Drive, which also has some videos, and the ability to play them, but no stopping, slo-mo or anything of the sort. And the videos here are also some of the tutorials, but not the ones in Box, and not the ones I can see from the PC. There is also Recently Deleted and Favorites, and a set of colors, all empty.

No idea what any of that is for, and none of it is getting me any further towards understanding this beast.

 

[pdanes]

Okay, I'll try anything at this point. Let you know in a few minutes...

 

[NSquirrel]

You do not need to be linked via the lightning cable, so disconnect it and btw you do not need itunes for this.

Connect via wifi to the iPad.

Try and follow what I said about the windows shared folder. Remember that once you have made the wifi link, from nplayer to the shared folder, you will be using the app to select the files and copy/ download, i.e. ‘pull’, them into the app, and not push them from the PC.

 

[pdanes]

Well, some success. I got the iPad to connect to my PC (miracle - it's in a network domain, but the name and password were enough to get in) and had access to everything, shared or not. I marked it for download, and it's now on 'Preparing to download...'. No further activity yet.

 

[pdanes]

I guess it connected over the Lightning, since that was still plugged in when I started this. Otherwise it would not (I hope) have seen the entire computer.

 

[NSquirrel]

BTW, if you still have problems, I will have a very short, if any, wifi window tomorrow evening.

 

[pdanes]

The 'Preparing to download...' window disappeared, but no indication of whether anything actually happened. The folder icon now opens a window that has a new entry on the left: "In my iPad". But when I tap it, there is nPlayer with its colored icon, in that is a folder "Downloads", and that is empty. When I use Nplayer itself to open Local storage, the download folder is also there, showing 0 items, but when I tap it, there is one thing inside - another of those obnoxious ads.

 

[pdanes]

I need to go to bed now, since I am sleeping at work and people start to show up early. At home I can do what I want, but my 'office' is actually a corner in the the photo lab, and people run in and out of here all day. Sleeping in is not an option. I have school tomorrow evening, but I will see if you are on when I get done. or maybe I will have some flash of brilliance between now and then, and solve it all.

Thanks for your efforts - I know this must be frustrating. If you had this in your hands, you could probably get it done in no time, but walking a beginner through these exercises can get extremely tedious. I appreciate it, very much.

 

[NSquirrel]

No problem. We will solve it soon.