# An important issue for those wanting an iPad to view video files....



## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I chose to buy the 64 gig iPad, and a significant part of the memory (I believe five gig) was unavailable out of the box because the iPad operating systems and factory-installed apps used it.

If you buy the 16 gig iPad, presumably you'll only have about 9 gig available for yourself.  Consider that a typical movie in normal format takes 1.5 to 2 gig.  I noticed that the new Sherlock Holmes movie and the Star Trek movie were both about 1.8 gig.  So if you stored five such movies on your iPad, you'd have used every bit of the space on a 16 gig model!  The HD version of Star Trek was almost 4 gig, so HD makes things much worse!  Just something you may want to consider.  These are huge amounts of space compared to what is on our Kindles (I believe the K2 had 2 gig of memory), but it doesn't go very far when you start talking video.  Presumably this won't be a big deal if you just want to rent movies or view streaming stuff from Netflix.

Just thought I'd mention it in case someone might benefit.  I'm glad I spent the extra two hundred bucks on the 64 gig version, even though (I assume) you can shift stuff on and off of your iPad from the store or your desktop computer.


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## hsuthard (Jan 6, 2010)

Wow, 5 GB for the OS? That is a lot. I ordered the 16gb with 3g, but I'm not planning on loading more than one show at a time on it. I've run into this on my iPhone, and just come to the conclusion that I only load what I'm planning to watch and not use it as storage. Did you get the SD card camera adapter? I've wondered if you could play a movie stored on that through the iPad's app?


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

I believe I saw the numbers in iTunes, I can't find it just using the functions on the iPad.


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## luvmy4brats (Nov 9, 2008)

This is why I'd get the 64GB version. I tend to keep several movies and TV shows on my iPhone and expect I'd do the same with an iPad. I have a 32GB iPhone and it's almost always full.


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## Bren S. (May 10, 2009)

The Hooded Claw said:


> I chose to buy the 64 gig iPad, and a significant part of the memory (I believe five gig) was unavailable out of the box because the iPad operating systems and factory-installed apps used it.
> 
> If you buy the 16 gig iPad, presumably you'll only have about 9 gig available for yourself. Consider that a typical movie in normal format takes 1.5 to 2 gig. I noticed that the new Sherlock Holmes movie and the Star Trek movie were both about 1.8 gig. So if you stored five such movies on your iPad, you'd have used every bit of the space on a 16 gig model! The HD version of Star Trek was almost 4 gig, so HD makes things much worse! Just something you may want to consider. These are huge amounts of space compared to what is on our Kindles (I believe the K2 had 2 gig of memory), but it doesn't go very far when you start talking video. Presumably this won't be a big deal if you just want to rent movies or view streaming stuff from Netflix.
> 
> Just thought I'd mention it in case someone might benefit. I'm glad I spent the extra two hundred bucks on the 64 gig version, even though (I assume) you can shift stuff on and off of your iPad from the store or your desktop computer.


You were missing 5gb right out of the box?? Hmm I bought a 32gb and I had 29. something available.
Yeah I would never recommend getting a 16gb for someone who wants to have videos on their iPad.

It makes a difference what people want to use their iPad for, if for just surfing and e-mail etc a 16gb would be fine..but beyond that I have doubts that it would be enough memory/storage.


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

hsuthard said:


> Did you get the SD card camera adapter? I've wondered if you could play a movie stored on that through the iPad's app?


I hadn't known about the camera adapter, but looked it up. The Apple store says it is shipping in late April. I'm glad you pointed this out, that will let me use the screen to preview my photos when I do "photo trips". Neat accessory, though I still wish they'd built in an SD card slot!


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## Bren S. (May 10, 2009)

The Hooded Claw said:


> I hadn't known about the camera adapter, but looked it up. The Apple store says it is shipping in late April. I'm glad you pointed this out, that will let me use the screen to preview my photos when I do "photo trips". Neat accessory, though I still wish they'd built in an SD card slot!


Yeah an SD slot would have been good.


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## KindleChickie (Oct 24, 2009)

I read an article a while back where Jobs was speaking to storage. He said he thought things were going to go mostly streaming from now on instead of downloads. So your songs/movies/TV shows you purchase from iTunes would not be downloads, but available thru streaming rights. A song would go from 99 cents to 25 cents to have in your streaming list. So basically, he didnt see the need to increase storage size of iPods/iPads.

Quick google and here is an article....

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/31/apples_streaming_music_service_could_arrive_in_july.html


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

KindleChickie said:


> I read an article a while back where Jobs was speaking to storage. He said he thought things were going to go mostly streaming from now on instead of downloads. So your songs/movies/TV shows you purchase from iTunes would not be downloads, but available thru streaming rights. A song would go from 99 cents to 25 cents to have in your streaming list. So basically, he didnt see the need to increase storage size of iPods/iPads.
> 
> Quick google and here is an article....
> 
> http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/03/31/apples_streaming_music_service_could_arrive_in_july.html


There's definitely something to that, as Pandora and Netflix are showing now! But wifi isn't always available, and I doubt "cell phone" style connections are going to be able to handle stuff like movie-length, high-resolution video for quite awhile.


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## hsuthard (Jan 6, 2010)

That's exactly what I had in mind when I ordered the 16gb. But I'm looking at a 22 hour flight this summer and thinking I'll be wanting extra space (and battery life).


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## The Hooded Claw (Oct 12, 2009)

hsuthard said:


> That's exactly what I had in mind when I ordered the 16gb. But I'm looking at a 22 hour flight this summer and thinking I'll be wanting extra space (and battery life).


I understand some transatlantic (and presumably transpacific, etc.) flights are offering on-board wifi for a fee now. That would DEFINITELY be worth it! I flew from the US to Tunisia and back two years ago on British Airways flights with a teeny personal video screen (with a dozen or so channels) for each seat. That made things SO much better.....I learned from that, and got a tiny Creative media player I've been taking on flights, but now my iPad will be filling that need!


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