Depending on what you want to watch and where you want to watch it, you can get movies moving on your iPad in a variety of ways. Here are the common methods of video acquisition (aside from shooting your own, which is explained back on Shooting Videos):

Chapter 11 gives you the lowdown on moving all kinds of files between iTunes and your trusty iPad, but here’s a quick summary:

The iTunes Store is chock-full of video choices, but sometimes you want to add your own flicks to your iTunes library. No problem, just drag the file from your desktop and drop it anywhere in iTunes’ main window, or choose File→“Add to Library” to locate and import your files. Once you get videos into iTunes, you can play them there or copy them to your iPad.

Another way to add videos to iTunes is to drag them into the “Automatically Add to iTunes” folder. This clever folder analyzes the file and—based on the file‘s extension—shelves it in the right spot. You find the auto-folder not through iTunes, but by navigating your system files. In Windows, it’s usually at C:/Music→iTunes→iTunes Media→Automatically Add to iTunes (Home→Music→iTunes→iTunes Media→Automatically Add to iTunes). If iTunes can’t categorize a file, it dumps it into a Not Added subfolder.

To play a video on the iPad, tap open the Home screen’s Videos icon. On the next screen, tap the type of video you want to watch: Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, or Music Videos. Then find the item you want to watch and tap the title or the Play button to start the show.

But how do you run the show when your gadget has no physical controls? Easy; the playback buttons are on the screen.

When you watch video, anything else on the screen distracts you, so Apple hides these controls. Tap the screen once to make them appear and again to make them disappear. Here’s what they do:

Movies on the iPad are great, but watching them on a bigger screen is often even more gratifying—especially if everyone in the house wants to watch. You can put all those movies and videos up on your TV screen—you just need to connect your iPad to your television set. What you connect them with depends on the hardware involved.

First of all, if you have a second-generation Apple TV (that’s the little black square one), you can use its built-in AirPlay wireless capability to beam your video stream onto the big screen over your WiFi network. Stream iPad Files With AirPlay has the details on getting set up with AirPlay.

But if you don’t have an Apple TV, you can use good old-fashioned cables to connect your iPad. Today’s TV sets (and those fancy AV receivers that connect all the components in your entertainment center) usually offer a few types of video port for connecting new gear. You can use component, composite, or VGA cables to tether your iPad to a TV or a projector. And you can watch high-definition videos over an HDMI connection with a special adapter.

The easiest place to find any of these iPad cables is the Apple Store (store.apple.com). Here, you’ll see the Apple Composite AV Cable (shown right) for TVs that have older video inputs. You can also find the Apple Component AV Cable, made for high-end TVs and widescreen sets that handle higher-quality video and audio connections. Each type of cable costs $40, but that includes an integrated AC adapter to power your iPad for a whole-weekend movie marathon.

Apple’s Dock Connector-to-VGA adapter sells for $29. And if you want to perch your ‘Pad on a stand, the iPad Dock includes a port for these AV cables for $29 as well. Third-party docks and cables are also out there.

If you use HDMI cables to connect high-definition components to your nice, big widescreen HDTV, you can use an HDMI cable to connect your iPad, too, and get HD playback from your tablet—as long as you have Apple’s $40 Digital AV Adapter (shown at right). It plugs into the iPad’s dock connector on one end and has an HDMI jack, plus a second dock connector, on the other end (in case you need to charge the iPad with its AC adapter while you watch). You don’t, however, get another white AC cube, so keep track of the power plug that came with your iPad. And you don’t get the HDMI cable that links the adapter to your TV, either.

The AV adapter gives second-generation iPad owners a special bonus, too: screen output at the 1080p resolution (the best there is). You can use the adapter to mirror the tablet’s own screen, letting you see whatever’s on the iPad displayed on your TV. You can use the AV Adapter with a first-generation iPad to show photos and videos, but you don’t get the screen-mirror effect—and both iPad generations get video output at the lower-resolution (but still technically high-definition) 720p.

Whatever cable you use, the iPad senses when you connect it to a TV set and automatically pipes its video feed to the big screen, but there are some settings you can adjust at Home→Settings→Video. You can turn on closed captioning for videos that include subtitles. You can also flip the On button next to Widescreen if you don’t want your widescreen movies squashed into the 4:3 aspect ratio of older TV sets. And if you travel internationally, pick a TV Signal. Choose NTSC if you live in the U.S. or Japan, and PAL if you’re connecting to a European or Australian TV set.

Once you get the iPad hooked up to play movies, be sure to select the alternate video source on your television set, just as you would to play a DVD or game. Then call up the video from the iPad’s library, press the Play button, pop up the corn, and enjoy the show from big screen to bigger screen.

All iPads can play video, and with the right apps, all iPads can edit video clips, too. If, however, you want to shoot video—or use Apple’s own iMovie app to edit videos—you need to have the second-generation iPad, with its camera and zippy A5 processor inside.

Shooting Videos explains how to operate the iPad’s video camera, so flip back if you need a refresher course in principal photography (or at least to see a still shot of the cat smacking the dog in the head). And remember, whatever you shoot lands in Photos→Camera Roll and not where you’d logically look, namely the Videos menu.

Editing Video on the iPad 2

Once you get the hang of capturing video with the iPad (which, quite frankly, feels like shooting a movie with a ceiling tile until you get comfortable with gripping the 10-inch slab and aiming it at your subject), your clips will begin to pile up in the Camera Roll.

Look through them—do you have a video where all the good action is in the middle? You know, the one where the first 5 minutes consists of absolutely nothing but you coaxing an under-performing baby into demonstrating her agility with Cheerios. Or all those clips where the last 2 minutes show the inside of your tote bag because you forgot to turn off the camera? That stuff is easy to fix on the iPad.

Here’s how to trim off the unnecessary parts on either end of a clip (keep in mind you can’t edit within a clip):

1. Open the video you want to edit.

2. Tap the screen to call up the editing controls. The frame-viewer bar at the top of the screen displays scenes from the clip.

3. Use the frame-viewer to find the frames you want to cut off. Press the outer edge of the bar so it turns yellow (as shown below), and then drag either end of the bar to isolate just the frames you want. Tap the Trim button in the top-right corner of the screen to cut away the detritus and leave the delicious center of your video.

After you tap the Trim button, the iPad offers to trim the original clip (which makes this edit permanent) or save the edited video as a new clip—while leaving the original intact.

Video-Editing Apps for the iPad

While the iPad 2’s basic video-editing tool lets you trim bad bits from either end of a clip, you may find that’s not enough. If you want to stitch different clips together, score background music, put in titles, and add Hollywood-style scene transitions, you need an app for that. And fortunately for you, there are video-editing apps that let you do all these things. When you get to the App Store, search for video editing.

Two apps pop up immediately. One is the previously mentioned iMovie for iPad by Apple (shown below), which costs $5 and requires an iPad 2. The other is ReelDirector, a $2 app from Nexvio that works on both-gen iPads.

“Hey,” you say, “How do I get video clips on my original iPad if it doesn’t have a camera?” Just shoot the clips on whatever camera you use to shoot video, and convert them to iPad-approved video formats (Video Formats That Work on the iPad). Then import them into your iTunes-compatible desktop photo program of choice and sync them over to the iPad; just make sure you check the “Include videos” box (Sync Photos describes the syncing process in detail). Then craft your opus and export it to your favorite video-sharing site so the world can see your hilarious short of the hamster mingling with Star Wars action figures.

As discussed in Chapter 11, the iTunes Store now sells movies, TV shows, and music videos. You can also import your own home movies, downloaded movie trailers, and other videos into the iPad via iTunes, as long as the files have one of these file extensions at the end of their name: .mov, .m4v, or .mp4.

Other common video formats, like .avi or Windows Media Video (.wmv), won’t play in iTunes, but you can convert them with Apple’s $30 QuickTime Pro software or any of the dozens of video-conversion programs floating around the Web. (If you’re unsure whether a file’s compatible, it’s always worth trying to drag it into iTunes’ main window and then choosing Advanced→“Create iPad or Apple TV Version.”)

Here are a few popular video-conversion tools:

Having a personal movie library with you at all times is great, but if there’s one thing about high-quality videos, it’s that they’re huge. Sure, TV show and movie rentals from iTunes delete themselves when they expire, but what about your regular collection? A long movie can take almost up to 2 gigabytes of your limited iPad drive space. And if you’re traveling with a full iPad and want to download a fresh flick for the plane, what do you do?

Fortunately, you can delete videos directly off the tablet—without having to link your iPad to the computer and turn off checkboxes to “unsync” files by way of iTunes. (However, removing the files the iTunes way is another way to regain drive space, with the added advantage that the videos stay safely in your computer’s iTunes library, ready for you to sync to your iPad again should you want to watch it again.)

When you’re ready to lose a movie or two, go to the iPad’s Videos area and tap open the category for the relevant file. Press your finger down on the icon until the appears on the corner (circled). Tap the and in the box that pops up, tap Delete (or Cancel, if you have second thoughts). The selected video goes poof! off the iPad. If you synced it from your computer through iTunes, a copy is still there and you can sync it back to your ‘Pad later if you miss it.