You should be able to watch video
everywhere these days - we show you how to make sure you get the (big) picture
on all your Apple devices
The Mac was the first computer that
supported digital video, its QuickTime architecture helping to ensure that for
many years it was the platform of choice for digital video production. Later
came video CDs and DVD playback, and of course, iMovie and Final Cut. A
consequence of all this support for video creation on the Mac is that it's
always had excellent video playback capabilities for ordinary users, too. From
the first moment you turn on your Mac. it’s able to play back digital videos
and with a few tweaks and additions, play or convert any video format. There's
no reason your Mac can't deal with even the most obscure video file.
Set
up your Apple gear correctly and you can watch whatever you like, wherever you
like
Since the release of the iPod Video many
years ago, Apple's portable devices have allowed you to watch videos on the
move as well, and in the latest versions of iOS there are a wealth of options
for watching, recording, and editing videos wherever you happen to be. iPhones.
iPads, and even the iPod touch are so powerful now that they can shoot and
export in HD. and you can rent, buy, and stream HD movies directly on your
device. The Apple TV is affordable and amazingly versatile, even more so if you
use it to its fullest potential. And this being Apple, everything syncs
together beautifully. So. whether your movies are still on DVD and you need to
get them into iTunes, you want to transfer a TV series to your iPad, or you
need to connect your iPad to your HDTV, our guide contains everything you need
to know.
Watching Video on Your Mac
Your Mac can play back almost any
video format, with a few tweaks...
Mac OS X has a whole layer of the operating
system dedicated to playing video, not that you will ever actually see it. Core
Video powers the QuickTime framework, which handles practically all aspects of
video playback. In OS X 10.7 and 10.8, you get both QuickTime 7 and QuickTime
X. though you may have to choose to install version 7 manually from your OS X
installer. It's well worth doing since as a better-established system it is
often able to open files that X cannot. Both can perform audio and video
recording using your Mac's camera and mics, and QuickTime X can even do screen
recording. You can extend QuickTime's movie-playback formats by installing
Perian, a handy little add-on from Perian. org. Development has officially
ended, but it still works well on OS X 10.8. The nice thing about Perian is
that it's not a separate app, it just extends QuickTime.
You
can buy or rent movies from the iTunes Store in SD or HD, and then watch them
on your Mac or your iOS devices.
Spinning Discs
If your Mac has an optical drive, it will
be able to play DVDs and will come with the DVD Player app. In the System
Preferences > CDs and DVDs section you can tell your Mac whether or not to
open this automatically when you load a DVD disc. DVD Player is quite fully
featured and supports HD. though not Blu-ray discs. If your Mac doesn't have an
optical drive, you can always add an external one connected over USB Apple's
own is $79, with third-party models somewhat cheaper. You have another option,
which is to share a remote disc drive. If there's a Mac on your network that
does have a drive, open its Sharing preferences and turn on DVD sharing. Using
the Remote Disc feature on your MacBook Air, new iMac, or new Mac Mini, you
will be able to connect to a disc in that drive. There’s an important
limitation, however: commercial DVDs can't be played in this way, as the
sharing feature is limited to data discs and home-burned DVDs without copy
protection. Of course, you could rip a movie on the Mac with the drive and then
access it via regular file sharing, a cloud-service such as Dropbox, or by way
of AirDrop you just have to think creatively.
You
can access movies online by purchasing or streaming them from places such as
the iTunes Store.
Buy or rent?
Your Mac is able to access all kinds of
movies online through purchase or streaming services, the biggest of which is
the iTunes Store. This is really straightforward and simply involves signing in
to iTunes with your Apple ID, locating the film or TV show you want, and then
choosing to buy or rent it.
When you do, a copy of the movie will be
downloaded to your Mac. and you can start watching it inside iTunes before it
has finished streaming. The movie's page in the Store will tell you the file
size for SD and HD versions, and SD is generally cheaper than HD, though the
resolution is lower, of course.
On smaller hard drives, such as SSDs in the
MacBook Air, downloading a few HD movies will start to use up precious space.
The good news is that when you buy a movie and watch it, even after you have
deleted the local copy, it can be re-downloaded again at any time. You own the
copy, it's just stored on Apple's servers until you want to watch it again. A
purchased movie can also be downloaded to any iOS device signed in with your
Apple ID. Renting is a little different, and although a copy of the film is
downloaded, you get 30 days to start watching it, and 48 hours from when you start
watching it to finish it. After this, it will be automatically deleted from
your iTunes library. You can move a rented movie from your Mac to an iOS
device, though it can only exist on one device at a time. If you rent a movie
on an iOS device, it can't be transferred to another device. You can also get
your own movies into iTunes. of course: see the tutorial on the next page for
how to do this.
Perian
is a handy add-on for OS X that enables QuickTime to load movies encoded in
many different formats.
Other Options
There are other streaming services that
don't need iTunes. such as Netflix and Hulu. and these work in a regular
browser window on your Mac, offering streaming but not downloads. The deal here
is that you can watch anything as often as you like for a regular subscription,
and both have iOS and Apple TV apps, too.
You can preview any OS X-compatible movie
file on your Mac simply by using the Quick Look command: select the file in
Finder and click the "eye" button in the Finder window or hit the
Space Bar. This actually contains full playback controls and can be made full screen,
as well as containing a link to open the movie in QuickTime Player or share it.
VLC
is a free movie player that can read many different file formats, some of which
QuickTime cannot.
Movies that you shoot on your iPhone or
iPad can also be easily transferred back to your Mac and will of course work
without the need for any format conversion. The quickest way to transfer movies
is to connect your iOS device with its USB cable and open the Image Capture app
that is part of OS X. This gives you direct access to the photos and movies,
which you can then drag and drop across. Of course, you can import them using
iMovie or iPhoto, too, if you want them to be cataloged. iMovie is particularly
useful, as it can resize your movies on import as well as adding effects, image
stabilization, and all sorts of other enhancements, though this does add more
steps and some processing time to the transfer process.
Alternative Apps
If you’re looking for third-party apps to
help with video playback on your Mac, you can’t go wrong with the big two,
currently VLC (http://bit.ly/8PtDvf) and Mplayer OSX (http://bit.ly/VA7plf),
both of which are free and surprisingly full-featured and stable, thanks to
their avid developer base. These apps tend to be able to open most kinds of
video files and also support things like subtitles a little more readily than
QuickTime Player. They don’t tie in with iTunes particularly, but if you're after
an alternative player for weird and wonderful formats and codecs, they're well
worth a download.