Archive for March, 2010

How to play downloaded Movies/Telly on your iPhone (and then onto your television)… including Ripping DVDs

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

I’m asked quite a bit on how to play downloaded movies and television (any sort of video, really) on your iPhone or iPod Touch… and then, move that onto your Television. It can take quite a bit of time to convert each file (unless the one you’ve downloaded is already formatted), but most of the job is a “Set up and leave it running in the background” job. There are, as with all things technical, many ways to skin the cat. This, however, is how I do it. I won’t include here exactly how to download the videos, but there are plenty of other tutorials out there that will teach you. This will also ‘rip’ DVDs, which means, turn them into a usable video file.

One important note though: Don’t ever pay for downloading videos, unless it’s a trusted source, such as iTunes. There are plenty of “Get every Movie ever made, just $5/month” run by people who you definitely don’t want to be giving your card details to. I remember my Dad once fell for one of these and it wasn’t much more a link to Pirate Bay and uTorrent with a tutorial set up.

So, let’s go ahead and get this puppy running. The file that I’m using is a rip of a video that I already legally have purchased, and as such, is a backup copy and I’m well within my rights to use it as I wish.

I’m presuming you already have iTunes installed.

How to get this running

Step 1 – Download Handbreak

Step 1 - Download the Handbreak Software

Download HandBreak (click to open), it’s a simple tool, get the “GUI” (Graphical User Interface) version, if you’re reading this, then you don’t want to be bogged down with writing codes. Make sure you get the right one for your operating system. You’ll then be prompted to download the file, click ‘yes’, if you get a choice (and for the sake of this guide), choose to save it to your desktop.
Step 2 – Install Handbreak

Stage 2 - Install and Run the Handbreak Software

Find the downloaded file (on your desktop if you’re followed this tutorial), double-click on it to open it up, and just keep on pressing ‘next’ and ‘i agree’ to the terms and conditions (You should read the terms and conditions*, and don’t accidentally ‘cancel’ when its installing), the default options are all fine.
Step 3 – Set Handbreak up

Stage 3 - Set everything up in Handbreak.
- (1) Select the Source file, this is your video file that you’ve downloaded or the folder with the DVD in
- (2) Select where you want your output file, if you’re going to do this a lot, then choose a new folder, if you’re just doing it every now-and-then, then pick somewhere like your Desktop.
- (3) Select the ‘iPhone & iPod Touch’ Preset
- (4) Making sure that the aspect ratio is fixed, if you’re only going to play this file on your iPhone/Touch, then you can leave this setting as it is. If you’re going to put it through to the telly, you’ll want to increase the Width to 720ish (or if the Source is smaller, select the source’s width). The bigger the size, the more room it’ll take up on your device. I find they normally take up around 700-800MB, at the ‘Size’ that looks good on the telly, so if you have a 32gb model, 2-3%. If you’re only playing them on your device, they’re around 400mb, which is a lot less.
- (5) Press ‘Start’, a black box will appear which will give you a percentage of how far along the file is. I think they take about 2-3 hours on my computer, but every computer is different. I normally do it the night before and just leave it going. Feel free to do other stuff while it’s running in the background, but if your computer crashes or you reboot it, you’ll have to start again.
Step 4 – Import into iTunes (and then onto your iPhone/iPod Touch)

Stage 4 - Import into iTunes and then your iPhone/iPod Touch
- (0) Open up iTunes
- (1) Click on ‘File’ then ‘Add File To Libary’, browse to the file we made in Handbreak (on your desktop if you were following above), and select ‘open’. This will them import it into your Library
- (3) Go to ‘Films’ section in iTunes
- (3) Right click on the video you just imported into iTunes, if it’s a TV Program, then go to ‘Options’, then at the ‘Media Kind’ drop down, change it to TV Program. This will move it from the Films section in iTunes to the TV Programs section.
- (4) To make things look pretty on your device, go to CDCovers.cc (click to open) and download the cover. You can then, once you’ve downloaded the right one, go to Artwork and add the cover to the file.
- (5) If your device isn’t plugged in to your computer, plug it in now. Once it’s finished sync’ing (if you’ve got auto-sync), drag the video file into iPhone/iPod Touch. It’ll then sync, and once that’s done, you’re more-or-less done !
Step 5 – You should now be able to watch it in the iPod application.

Only buy the OFFICIAL cable (about 30 squid)

Now to get this running on the telly, you need to buy an official iPod/iPhone AV Cable, I choose the APPLE MB129ZA/B Composite AV Cable, it’s important you buy the real thing, as with iPhone OS 3.0, they wiped out something that broke unofficial cables. I went through 3 different brands before I found out, luckily they were all from local shops so it wasn’t a big deal waiting for them. Everything plugs in as you would expect (the three wires are colour coded, the iPhone/iPod Touch end is a usual connector, there is even a USB cable to plug it into the wall so you don’t run out of juice).

When you plug it in, the telly won’t change until you’re actually playing the video. You can also watch YouTube on the big screen.

As a side note: You can also watch TV Catchup (Live Television feeds, click to open) and a lot of BBC iPlayer (click to open) on the big screen too. This is great if you’ve got bad Freeview reception.

* Well, that’s up to you, I never bother, but it’s always good advice to point out that they’re there for a reason.

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Beef and Stout 3.14 ! (best thing I’ve made yet)

Friday, March 19th, 2010

The finished product

Hello blog, long time, no post. I’ve been a right sicko recently, but have been racking up the recipes to write about, and I’m opening up with a great one.

I’ve never understood Britain’s passion with pies, at least, until now. Gingsters, Pukka, Supermarket-own-brand, it’s all weak flavoured filling in clangy pastry that holds no appeal to me what so ever. But I do see so many people enjoy them, and I want in on that. And now with this, I can see exactly why a good pie is just, gosh darn it, one of the nicest things I’ve ever made. I admit, the pastry part of the pie is irrelevant to me, it’s just as good as a stew with a bit of mash, but it does make it look pretty.

Ingredients…

900g of braising steak in bite sized chunks
25g Plain Flour
5tbsp sunflower oil
25g unsalted butter
A punit of button mushrooms
2 onions thinly sliced (I used a packet of shallots, not realising what a bitch they are to slice)
Some sugar
300ml Beef Stock (get the real stuff rather than stock cubes… you’re going through all this effort, not point skimping on this one)
A bottle of stout, like Guinness
Thyme, Bay Leaves and whatever herbs you think would go, tied up together.
Worcester Sauce
Salt’n'Pepper
Egg and Puff Pastry (egg is just to egg-wash it)

What to do.

Toss the beef in flour, season with salt’n'pepper, add some oil to a very large saucepan/casserole dish, brown the meat in two batches and put on the side.
Put a big dollop of butter into the pan, add the mushrooms and fry for a little while, and then put it on the side with the beef.
Put in a spoon of sugar in the pan and over a medium heat, sweat and brown the onions, it should take about 20 minutes.
Add the flour (that you tossed the meat in), herbs, stout, Worcester sauce, some salt’n'pepper and stock. While stirring, bring it to the boil, that way the flour dissolves properly. Then add the mushrooms and meat, put the lid on and simmer for about two hours. Warning, don’t taste it now, it taste rank, but by the time it’s finished simmering, it’ll be amazing.
Spoon out the meat, mushrooms and whats left of the onions (they’ve basically dissolved), and put it in your pie dish.
Remove the tied up herbs/bay leaf, turn up the heat and reduce down to about a pint or soo. Pour over the mushrooms’n'meat in the pie dish and leave to cool. This is basically what it’s going to taste like now, so here is your chance to add a bit of seasoning, or maybe a bit of sugar if it’s to bitter.
Roll out the pastry, put it over the top, make a little hole in the middle for the steam, egg wash it (and maybe do a few pretty bits with the excess pastry), and bung it in the oven at 190ish for about 30 minutes, until the top looks done and the pie-guts are all bubbling.
…… serve and enjoy, I had it with mash, and believe me, you will enjoy.