Video Footage into iPad 2 for iMovie

One of the points Steve Jobs made sure he emphasized during the iPad 2 unveil was that it was now powerful enough to be a portable video editing tool.  He rolled out the new iMovie made specifically for the iPad and demonstrated how you would edit footage you shot with the iPad 2’s built in camera.

However, that’s where the problems begin.  Unfortunately, the camera on the iPad 2 really isn’t very good, not to mention that fact that you would probably look rather ridiculous walking around on vacation with a 10 inch tablet in front of your face.  So how do we get footage we shot elsewhere (either on our cell phones or dedicated still or video cameras) into the iPad to edit on iMovie.

If you just transfer footage in, you will be able to see the footage in your photos folder, but you won’t be able to access it in iMovie.  The reason for this is that iMovie is very particular about the type of encoding the videos have to be in to be recognized.  Photos, for the most part, will be ok to be transferred in, but video must be transformed into a format that iMovie and the iPad 2 like.

After much research, a user on the Apple forums seems to have discovered the secret.  Forum member Zwiller5 has found a program that will do the conversion as well as the correct settings to make your video footage and your iPad 2 live in harmony.  You can see his original settings at this following link…

Apple Forums: Settings for Video for iMovie on iPad 2

(You’ll have to scroll down a little to find his post.)

The program he suggests using is a PC application called Aleesoft Free iPad Video Converter (the name sounds pretty self explanatory).  He also includes all of the settings.  The application itself is relatively user friendly so you should be able to enter the information without too much hassle.  I tried it myself and have converted footage shot on my Nexus S as well as footage shot on my Panasonic point and shoot that does 720p video.  Both times the footage came out very well and the editing in iMovie was a breeze.

I’m going to keep looking for a more suitable program for the Mac that can do the same thing, but in the meantime we can now start transferring footage over to the iPad and let out the Scorsese in all of us.