Hi

Wondering if anyone has one of these:

Apple Time Capsule

If so, is the wi-fi fast enough to stream a film onto an iPad and the film be watchable?

If so, it seems like an excellent way of effectively changing your iPad from 16/32/64 gb to 2 or 3 tb plus the original storage. No more having to choose which films to take away on holiday, which photos to load up to show the family etc. no more juggling space requirements between devices.

Am I missing something here or does this really do what it says it does. Obviously currently missing the wherewithal to pay for said device, but hey, birthday and Christmas around the corner…

Or is there another device which will do the same job for less money (still needs to be at least 2tb)?

Anyone?

I’ve never used one, but the reviews on the Apple site aren’t that positive.

I’m not sure the Time Capsule does what you want. It’s mainly designed as a Time Machine backup for laptops and desktops. It’ll only give your iPad WiFi access. Nothing more. (As far as I know).

The Time Capsule, like most Apple products, is grossly overpriced for what it is. I’d get a Netgear Readynas Duo and a couple of large hard drives for the same money or less, even:

You could then mirror the drives so that you’d always have a backup in case of drive failure. I think Time Machine still works with a Duo too. I can’t imagine why an iPad wouldn’t work with it.

‘Streaming onto an iPad’. Not entirely clear on what it is you want. The WiFi bit of the Time Capsule is fast enough for streaming (draft N, perhaps even A now). If what you mean is ‘stream from source files not on my iPad’ then you need to connect to an iTunes library on your network e.g. a laptop with iTunes running. This machine could store its iTunes content on the Time Capsule. If you mean ‘stream from files on the time capsule direct to my iPad’ that isn’t possible. As others have said the Time Capsule is designed as a network drive that ‘just works’ with the Mac OS X Time Machine backup software. Although you can partition it and use it as a regular NAS too.

You can get the Time Capsule effect using a regular airport extreme with regular external USB hard drives plugged into its USB port.

If you sign up to iTunes match, you can access all your music via WiFi and many iTunes-bought movies. But I suspect that’s not what you were after.

I have a synology ds212j and can stream straight from that to my Ipad using the synology app. Could be worth looking at. It would require plugging into your wireless router.

Good point from somouk: third party software can get you what you want.

Nah, sorry, I perhaps didn’t explain exactly what I want.

I want to be able to store all of my MP4 files (and pretty much everything else) on a drive which creates its own wifi hotspot so that I can then use an app to browse and watch the videos over its own wifi network – completely separate from my home router: say, in a hotel room on holiday.

I’ve just realised that the Time Capsule probably doesn’t create its own wireless network – it needs an existing one to join before I can view files on said network.

I was rather hoping that it worked the same way as the Seagate external hard drive which DOES create its own wireless network (but only comes in 500gb, costs ~£150 and the app for accessing the files gets panned in iTunes reviews).

There must be something around which
a) Comes in 2tb+
b) Creates its own wireless network fast enough to watch video on and
c) Doesn’t cost the earth (maybe only half of it)

The time capsule should create it’s own wireless network and should run on N networking if it’s a newer one which should be sufficient.

The issue will be browsing to it which you may need a third party app for.

Thanks somouk, thought perhaps it didn’t create its own wireless network. There is an app for £2.69 or so for browsing the files. It’s a bit like Windows Explorer, apparently.

The Time Capsule does create it’s own WiFi network. It’s the streaming I’m not sure about.

This looks like it might be of interest to you.

Wireless streaming storage for your tablet

The Seagate Satellite™ device lets you take your media library with you on the go and stream it wirelessly to your iPad® or Android® tablet or your smartphone.

Take more than 300 HD films with you on the go*
Stream media over Wi-Fi to eight devices at the same time
Sync media and documents automatically from your PC or Mac computer
Access and stream your media easily using the free app or your device’s web browser
Up to seven hours of battery life**

Only 500Gb though.

@d3fm3ch That is exactly what I want but it’s too small and it’s app gets panned on iTunes. Maybe the synology app or something similar would work.