Will the iPad 2 Change the Way We Watch Film and TV at Home?

Recently my wife and I started a new pre-sleep ritual that involves coupling. Sorry, I meant, of course, Coupling, the excellent BBC sitcom by Doctor Who and Sherlock showrunner Steven Moffat. Typo notwithstanding,we do enjoy a level of intimacy (albeit platonic) in our new activity. In line with the changing viewing habits of the population at large, we’re cuddling up to a relatively new source of film and television: Netflix. And we’re not using anything as old fashioned as a TV. We’re getting into bed with an iPad.

If you believe Apple’s Steve Jobs, the iPad 2 heralds the post-PC age. Frankly, we think that’s more hyperbole than truth given that the iPad is a computer by any sensible definition of the term. What’s more, despite Apple’s slipping sense of technical and moral superiority, their products attract a level of devotion that is definitely personal.

Despite our skepticism, we do think the iPad is part of a revolution, just a more modest one. Together with its diminutive cousins, the iPhone and iPod Touch, it’s giving us new ways to put TV and film in front of our eyes. But does that mean it’s time to chuck out your DVD player, cable box and PVR and join the streaming revolution?

Look on Apple’s slick iPad website and you’ll see that the iPad 2 is slimmer, faster and has a battery that lasts three times as long as Avatar. You won’t find much about its home entertainment capabilities, though. Yet, delivering media is a useful and easily implemented feature of this tablet and other recent-generation devices that use iOS, the operating system behind the iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch. Even older iOS devices can be made to work with limitations. Of course, other smartphones and tablets can play back video. Yet, as far as delivering film and TV is concerned, Apple has the upper hand thanks to iTunes, it’s well-established and integrated system for selling, streaming, displaying and copy-protecting commercial media. If you have Apple TV or a home theater PC (a.k.a. a dinosaur in Apple’s thesaurus), you might already be watching such downloads or the iTunes-friendly digital copies that some distributors include with Blu-ray and DVD movie releases.

One of the features of the iPad 2 that Apple has been keen to publicize is mirroring, the ability—via Apple’s Digital AV Adapter (DVA) or VGA Adapter (‘sold separately’)—to display ‘every app, web page, presentation, video, movie, or photo you want to show’ on an HDTV. Combine this with the iPad 2′s ability to output 1080p resolution video and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound using the DVA and there is the potential for the iPad to be a highly effective device for delivering visual entertainment.

Besides the DVA and the VGA adapter, there are also other ways get content from an iPad 2 to a TV screen. Wireless video streaming from iTunes is possible if you have Apple TV and AirPlay. If you are happy with a lower-than-1080p resolution and stereo sound, you can also use old-school video cables. Companies such as Scosche and IOGEAR make composite or component video cables that can be used to play back video either directly from the device or streamed using Home Sharing from iTunes on a Mac or, ahem, Windows PC. The former’s sneakPEEK series includes a combo set (the sneakPEEK II) that has both kinds of cables. One advantage composite cables have over HDMI is that inputs can be found on many older CRT televisions. Regardless of which cables you use, though, you should be able to avoid having to sit two feet from the TV because your cable is only that long. Various companies produce devices that will wirelessly stream video from VGA and HDMI connections. In principle, it should be possible to hook up the iPad to a device such as Warpia’s StreamHD or the ASUS WiCast and beam your video across the room (unfortunately we didn’t receive either device in time for testing).

As for content, we haven’t been able to try out every video app in the extensive range available in iTunes’ App Store but know that you can mirror Netflix from an iPad 2 (albeit with the loss of video playback on the iPad itself). Recent reports suggest that there may be a bug in the latest update to the Hulu Plus app that disables mirroring but it seems likely that this will be corrected before too long. Given that it is supposed to be device-independent, we assume that mirroring does work with the likes of PlayOn and the many other apps that stream films and live or on-demand TV. Of course, you can also mirror playback of purchases from iTunes but this has effectively been possible with several iOS devices for a while.

You’re not restricted to iTunes and TV apps, either. If you can get free over- the-the air conventional TV channels from an antenna or cable, you can stream live TV from a TV card attached to a computer. This gets picked up by an appropriate app on the iPad and, in principle, you should be able mirror it on your TV. Elgato’s EyeTV 3 software for the Mac can stream live and recorded TV from EyeTV devices. Hauppauge and AverMedia produce similar hardware/software combinations. I tested the EyeTV One, a simple USB tuner card that is designed to receive free over-the-air digital channels. The selection of channels was sparse where I tested the device but the EyeTV was easy to set up. Moreover, my iPhone picked up the streamed HD channels via Orb and its associated app without a hitch (too bad about the content, which was a televised debate in the recent Canadian federal election). Bigger centers will probably have a large selection of channels.

So is it time to chuck out that BD player and jump headlong into the post-PC age with an iPad 2?

Hold your horses. Firstly, with a starting price of $499, the iPad 2 is more expensive than even higher-end BD players. Secondly, it’s still less flexible than an HTPC (sorry Steve) or many disc players. Generally, the content that you can watch via iPad apps is restricted by what’s available in the iTunes store specific to the country you live in. With a PC it is relatively easy to gain access to content from various different countries. Many DVD and Blu-ray disc players can also play imported material if they can be made region free. And Internet-enabled Blu-ray disc players and TVs can access an increasing range of online video streaming services such as Netflix, Qriocity (hackers permitting) and Hulu. This being the age of multi-dimensional entertainment, 3D is also a consideration. The iPad 2 can’t do that. The bottom line is that if you already have an iPad or plan to buy one, you could find it taking over the tasks previously done by disc players and the PVR. If you’re not in the market for Apple’s flat PC, though, I wouldn’t ditch your clunky conventional devices too quickly. Despite the hype, the iPad 2 hasn’t changed everything… yet.