I got my camera connection kit today and was extremely eager to find out what I could do with it with a jailbroken iPad, the results are extremely pleasing.
Basically, I've determined that iFile will read the card just as if it were part of the internal file system so everything you can do with iFile on normal files still applies. That means image and video playback straight from the SD card without having to transfer first!
I was also interested in finding out what class of SD would be required to play video straight from the card. I have determined that measley class 2 cards are absolutely fine for this task. I had bought a more expensive Class 6 32GB card - this obviously had no problems with video but the same tests on an old 2GB class 2 card also went fine.
For test clips, I was re-encoding a 2 minute chunk of Avatar at 1024x576. I chose this resolution as it matches the iPad screen resolution so no up or down scaling is done. I endcoded at AVC Level 3.1 (max bitrate 14,000kbps) at various average bitrates. The Class 6 and Class 2 cards were both doing fine up to 8.5mbps average at which point I stopped testing as this bitrate is definitely overkill for the iPad display size and the picture looked amazing.
So in summary, if you're jailbroken (and there really is no reason at all why you shouldn't be) and you were wondering if the camera kit could solve your iPad storage issues - it can. I now only have to take a few tiny SD cards on holiday with me and I will have 32+32+8 (sd cards) + 16 (iPad) = 88gb of storage for movies/tv episodes in mp4 format.
To get ifile to read your sd/USB devices simply connect them to the ipad, wait for the error message and ok it. Launch ifile and browse to /var/mnt/mount1 and you will then be looking at the contents of your sd/USB device.
OK, please explain this:
I loaded some images, a few videos, a randon text file, three doc files and some random files with odd extensions into a cheap ass Flash Drive.
I plugged in my CC kit, installed the micro SD card, and waited for the error message.
It did not popup.
So I ran iFile and God Allmighty, right there under the little 'Disk" icon was a 'flash Drive" icon.
Worked like a champ and Bob is pleased. Thanks to you.
I did not need to navigate to
/var/mnt/mount1; the little Flash Drive disk simply appeared.
It is not over...
I removed the CC kit connector designed for the SD Card and adapter and loaded the same cheap Flash Drive with a few more assorted files. Took a deep breath thinking, no, it ain't a gonna work, and inserted my USB drive into the other connector. I expected an error, none arrived on my screen.
I was made aware that there is a voltage issue that prevents the CC Kit/iPad connector port from working and Flash Drives won't work because of this voltage issue.
Clicked on iFile and By God... my iPad accessed my standard USB flash Drive, plugged into the standard Camera Connection Kit, and no Apple warnings of any kind.
Just plug --SD card or Flash Drive-- and play. I tried the files and all opened like they should of.
Gosh, thanks a whole bunch. You absolutely solved (or clued me into a solution) something I have tried and failed and failed and tried, and have pestered iPad forums endlessly in the hopes of a solution.
I'll likely post this elsewhere because it just simplified my life. No More iTunes sync, just straight-forward and simple.
Bob Maxey
