How to convert AVCHD to iPad, iphone 4, iPod, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, BlackBerry... etc. on MAC

AVCHD is a high definition (HD) digital video camera recorder format recording 1080i and 720p signals onto MiniDVD discs, MiniDV tape, Hard Drive, and digital camera Memory Cards. AVCHD recordings made on MiniDVD discs can be played back on some Blu-ray disc players, however, AVCHD with a .M2TS and .MTS file extension cannot be played back on standard DVD players and most portable players.

As a Sony AVCHD camcorder user, I’d like to share my experience about how to convert AVCHD videos to standard video such as avi, mp4, flv videos, so you can play the converted AVCHD videos on Computer, iPad, iPhone 4, iPod, Zune, PSP etc, or even upload AVCHD videos to YouTube and share with your friends. This article consists of the following three parts.
Part I. How much do you know about AVCHD video?
Part II. Why convert AVCHD video to standard Video formats such as AVI, MP4?
Part III. How to Convert AVCHD video to popular video and play on iPad, iPhone, PSP?

Part I. How much do you know about AVCHD video?
AVCHD is short for “Advanced Video Codec High Definition”, it is the newest HD format to be released for inexpensive HD video production. And AVCHD (AVC-HD, AVC HD) video is recorded by AVCHD camcorder such as Canon VIXIA HG20, Sony HDR-UX5, and Panasonic HDC-SD1 etc using the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 video compression codec.

AVCHD Videos usually memory on recordable DVD discs, memory cards and hard disk drives. And AVCHD specification support all three high definition formats: 1080i, 1080p and 720p.

Part II. Why convert AVCHD video to standard Video formats such as AVI, MP4?
If someone used to have AVC HD videos, he would be frustrated that there are so little devices which support AVCHD video. Normally, you can only play your AVCHD videos directly from a camcorder on a HDTV with a HDMI, or burned onto DVD disc, then played from most Blu-ray Disc player, or on a computer, playing from the camcorder connected via USB as an external storage device.

However, have you imagined playing your AVCHD videos on your PC, laptop, iPad, iPhone, iPod, Zune PSP or any other portable mp4 players? Or even uploading your AVCHD videos to YouTube, MySpace, Facebook etc to share with all of your friends?

In order to find out a workable method to do that, I have searched relate questions on Google. Finally, I got an answer which certainly can do that – Convert AVCHD files to standard video formats such as avi, mp4, mpg, wmv, flv…etc. So that you can put the converted AVCHD videos to your iPad, iPhone, iPod, Zune, PSP etc or even upload it to YouTube. And the key step to do that is to use AVCHD video converter.

Part III. How to Convert AVCHD video to popular video and play on iPad, iPhone, PSP?
Here I take iFunia AVCHD Video Converter as an example to show you the step-by-step guide to convert AVCHD videos to popular video formats such as convert AVCHD Video to avi, convert AVCHD Video to mp4, convert AVCHD Video to wmv, convert AVCHD Video to flv …etc.

Step1. Get AVCHD files off HD camcorder to Mac
Connect the AVCHD camcorders to your MAC with cable(USB/WiFi). Select mode of camcorder such as PC/Computer mode. It is desirable that you copy the videos to your MAC's hard-drive before converting or editing it. iMovie will automatically detect when you have a FireWire camcorder connected. If you see the message No Camera Attached, make sure your camera is turned on and properly plugged in to your computer via a FireWire cable and that your camcorder is set to VCR, VTR, or Play mode.

Step2. Download iFunia AVCHD Video Converter
Here we use iFunia AVCHD Converter to show the AVCHD video conversion process. In addition, this AVCHD Converter also can convert hd (high definition) videos such as mts, m2ts, tod, ts, mod to standard videos including avi, mp4, wmv, flv, mpeg, rm etc.
You can download free trial Version here: iFunia AVCHD Converter, then install and run this program on your MAC.

Step3. AVCHD videos source setup
In the iFunia AVCHD Converter main panel, click the "Add..." button to select AVCHD video files from your computer hard disc. Batch conversion is supported by this AVCHD converter, so you can load several AVCHD files at one time. Here you can also preview AVCHD video files and take snapshots.


Step4. Customize output Settings
After you finishing video source setup, you can now select an output profile in the drop-down box, here we select iPad MP4 as output format, so you can put the converted AVCHD video on your iPad. And remember to specify a directory on your MAC to save the output files.


There are various format/bit rate/screen resolution options in the Setting window. Different file formats result in different video compression rates. Bit rate refers to the number of bits processed per unit of time, the larger the number, the more bits processed and the better the quality. Resolution refers to the number of pixels handled by the device display.


Step5. Start the conversion
Finally, click the "Start" button. The Progress bar shows the status of the converting task. The program will prompt you when the converting task is completed, then click OK.

Step6. Copy the converted AVCHD video to your iPad and enjoy it.
Connect your iPad with your MAC via iTunes, copy the converted AVCHD video (iPad Video MPEG-4) to your iPad, so you can enjoy the AVCHD video on the go.

Tips:
* This AVCHD Converter for Mac fully supports Mac OS X 10.5 or later.
* iFunia AVCHD Converter allows you to manually set video resolution, bite rate, codec and frame rate to get perfect output videos. To set that please follow step 4.
* iFunia AVCHD Converter is also a light-weight AVCHD editor. It offers you simple video editings like cropping / trimming video, adding watermark and special effects, including deinterlace to remove the movies black area.
* This program can merge all clips from a conversion batch into one movie for easy sharing on YouTube or iTunes.
* It supports AVCHD footage from various AVCHD camcorders or DVs like Canon Cameras, Panasonic Cameras, Sony Camcorders, JVC Camcorders, etc.

Rumors of the next generation apple tv and 99-Cent TV Rental Service

There’s a new set-top box coming to town next month. The box, the iTV, will come from Apple and will finally be a refresh of the Apple TV.

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Apple Inc. is in advanced talks with News Corp. to let iTunes users rent TV shows for 99 cents and is in discussions with other media companies about similar deals, said three people familiar with the plan.

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How it works
To put the rental service through its paces, I rented the Bruce Willis action movie Live Free or Die Hard, a $3.99 rental. It took about 20 minutes to grab the 1.8GB file—the speed was the result of limited bandwidth at the hotel room I'm staying at for Expo, as opposed to any problem with iTunes. A faster home connection will easily result in faster download times.

That's not to say the rental system is flawless—I first tried to grab Blades of Glory, the Will Ferrell comedy—for my troubles, I got a message that the movie's status had recently changed.

Additionally, the actual timing mechanism seems a little wonky. When my download didn't finish Tuesday night, I started them up again Wednesday morning—I discovered that the 30-day clock had already started running, via a message that said I had 29 days to watch the movie. Perhaps the clock starts running because Apple contends you can begin watching the rentals within 30 seconds of starting the download on "a modern Internet connection," but it seems like it would be more fair to wait until the download was complete before beginning the 30-day countdown.

When you make up your mind about what you want to grab, you're prompted by the iTunes Store to confirm your purchase—a good maneuver for someone who might have inadvertently clicked on the "Rent Movie" button without realizing what they were doing. And you have the option at this point to turn off that dialog box in the future, if you wish. Once you click on Rent, the movie transfers to your computer.


As the file transfers you'll notice a new icon in the Library section of the Source List—Rented Movies. Clicking on this icon reveals any movies that you've rented complete with information about the studio, the movie's run time, and a short synopsis describing what's going on.

You have the option to watch the movie as soon as enough of the file has downloaded to build up a buffer. And when you double click on the movie to begin watching, you're advised that you'll have 24 hours to finish watching the movie.

From there, the experience of watching the movie is the same as it would be if you'd bought it. Chapters are marked, you can make the movie player go full screen, and so on.


You can also transfer your rental to another device—specifically, an iPod, iPhone, or Apple TV. Transfer is the operative word here—you are, in fact, moving a file from one device to another, not copying it. You'll need to be connected to the Internet to move files off your computer to allow iTunes to manage the FairPlay DRM transaction that makes this possible.

Given how cumbersome managing files encrypted with DRM can be, Apple has been able to disguise the process to make it as unobtrusive as possible. Still, some users are likely to wonder why they have to move movies, rather than copy them as they do with music—and they're likely to find explanations involving movie studio concerns about piracy unsatisfying.

When the transfer is complete, the copy of your movie disappears from the iTunes Rental Movies list on your computer and reappears on the device you've copied it to.

Once the 24-hour window closes, your rental disappears from the Rental Movies list as well.


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Releated link:
Convert DVD movies or video to Apple TV on Mac

Making and installing vWallpapers (OS4)

vWallpaper Jailbreak App

So you’ve got your Apple iPhone handset and you wish to make it more pretty, so you slap on a static wallpaper image to help stylise the staid image on the Apple iPhone’s sexy 3.5inch multi-touch display, but are you satisfied with just the usual static image?


If not then you will be happy to hear that it is now possible to use video as the Apple iPhone’s wallpaper, and this is achieved with the aid of yet another useful iPhone 3rs-party application. With vWallpaper, Apple iPhone owners can alter any properly sized .mov video file into animated wallpaper; the video is then splashed behind the home-screens icons.

You will need to jailbreak your iPhone handset first and add the “i.danstaface.net” app repository to your “Source” list. Once done and you’ve edited your movie to the preferred format, you will need to SSH into your iPhone and add the video to the correct directory.

• Connect to your local WiFi network.
• Find your iPhone’s IP address by navigating to Settings>WiFi and hitting the blue arrow next to your WiFi network.
• Fire up Cyberduck on your Mac or WinSCP on your Windows machine and log into “sftp://xxx.xxx.xx.x” with username “root” and password “alpine”
• Put videos into these directories:
o /Applications/vWallpaper.app/Library/Skrew/Videos
o /Library/Skrew/Videos

Some biggners asked question like this "What video format does vWallpaper is belonged to? They are .mov, .mp4, or Motion JPEG (M-JPEG)? Could I create a video of .mp4 like vWallpaper for my iphone 4 with video converter which offer edit option for users? What I want to say is can I use .mp4 video as wallpaper just like vWallpaper have done.”

"Okay, I've spent a couple hours trying to figure out what the heck is going on, and no matter where I search for an answer, I get the same stupid walkthrough that is completely wrong.

Tutorials tell me that if I am an iPhone 4 user (which I am) that I can use 640 x 960 resolution videos as vringtones/vwallpapers. Well, they're wrong. I've tried five videos so far, using several programs to convert them. (Mainly Adobe Premiere Pro.) When I select it for use, the phone acts like it doesn't have retina display. It makes the video look WAY too big for the screen. Basically, it looks as if I'm using a 640 x 960 video on a 3G, instead of an iPhone 4, because it cuts off 3/4 of the video.

What is going on, and what secret does the world know that I don't to make this work? All I want is my Metal Gear codec vringtone... Jeeze."

Got response like this "I use ifunia iPhone 4 Video Converter Mac, works best for me, but i too cannot get an up scaled videos to display right."

Share a comment or problems with phones and networks.

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FaceTime Over 3G Comes to Jailbroken iPhone 4s

Posted on August 16, 2010, 9:07 am, by macfunia of ifunia

Cydia has released an app called My3G, which lets you run WiFi apps over 3G. With this new updated version of My3G for iPhone 4, you can now make FaceTime video calls over your cellular 3G network which otherwise isn’t possible. FaceTime video quality appears to be unaffected, but framerates suffer depending on your connection as expected. Follow theses 7 steps to jailbreak and make Facetime calls over 3G.

Setup Instructions:

1) Jailbreak your iPhone 4 via www.jailbreakme.com.
2) Download and upgrade to the latest Cydia package.
3) Open Cydia, Go to Manage then Sources.
4) Click Sources, Edit then add: http://apt.modmyi.com
5) Search for “My3G” — download, and install it.
6) Go through the Rock setup process with a username and password. Open My3G and leave all settings on the default.
7) FaceTime should now work over 3G! — Make sure to “Forget” the WiFi network you are on (via iOS settings) if you want to test it.

P.S.- If you’re averse to jailbreaking, remember that Fring lets you make video calls over 3G (poorly) without any shenanigans — and unlike FaceTime, you can also video call non-iPhone users