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Apple TV & iTunes Movies

J

JackSpadesSI

Senior member
I just got an Apple TV last night (I'm not sure of the version, but it is the newest one). I see under "TV Shows" that there's a "Purchased" option, which lets me watch any episode that I've purchased through iTunes. I'm pretty sure that when I'm watching those episodes that the content is being streamed over the internet from Apple's servers (instead of over my home network from my PC).

However, under "Movies" there is no "Purchased" option. Why can't I watch all of the movies that I have in iTunes on my Apple TV? Isn't that the whole point of an Apple TV?
 
only for TV can you stream, this is due to their contracts with the studios.

this is why i won't buy any movies from itunes. blu ray and dvd FTW
 
So it has nothing to do with the fact that I didn't buy these movies through iTunes? All of my movies are free digital copies which came with a DVD/Blu-ray.

I was wondering if that was why there was no "Purchased" option under "Movies" on the Apple TV.
 
last i heard you can't download movies any time you want. you buy it, download it and then you have to stream it to your apple tv from idevice, mac or PC

only music, tv shows, apps and books can be downloaded at any time after you buy it
 
Without a TV tuner, I just feel Apple TV is worthless. The only thing I can't do with my MCE setup is buy tv shows from the apple store.

And I love Apple stuff. I am currently watching CNBC in a Parallels VM running MCE taking advantage of a network tuner in my Ceton InfiniTV 4-tuner box. I couldn't do this otherwise.
 
i'm personally holding out hope for a huge software/content upgrade come the ipad 3 introduction event.

as it is it's too limited. only netflix and itunes. the latter is OK for buying kids' cartoons but not much else. i would buy a roku over the apple TV right now
 
Can't you stream the mp4 movies on your hard drive through iTunes via sharing? I played around with it when I first bought the AppleTV and remember it working. It was just slow loading the playlist.

If that doesn't work, jailbreak it and install XBMC. Problem solved.
 
ponyo said:
Can't you stream the mp4 movies on your hard drive through iTunes via sharing? I played around with it when I first bought the AppleTV and remember it working. It was just slow loading the playlist.

If that doesn't work, jailbreak it and install XBMC. Problem solved.
Click to expand...

Yes. You can simply turn on Home Sharing in iTunes and access all of your iTunes media from your Apple TV. My only complaint is that you have to have iTunes open. I really wish Apple would make it a system wide background process so the computer can be asleep with no uses logged in and still be able to access users media.
(And yes, XBMC on AppleTV kicks ass)
 
Right, I did the sharing thing and that works but I'm not happy with it. Two reasons: I have to keep iTunes running on my PC (which I don't normally do) and the picture quality of the one movie I tried to watch was absolutely terrible.

I bought the Apple TV, mainly, because I wanted a Netflix player in my bedroom. Well, it does that quite well, so I guess I should be happy. But, I find it very odd that the Apple TV is much better as a Netflix player than it is as an iTunes player. Since when do Apple products not play well with each other?!
 
JackSpadesSI said:
Right, I did the sharing thing and that works but I'm not happy with it. Two reasons: I have to keep iTunes running on my PC (which I don't normally do) and the picture quality of the one movie I tried to watch was absolutely terrible.

I bought the Apple TV, mainly, because I wanted a Netflix player in my bedroom. Well, it does that quite well, so I guess I should be happy. But, I find it very odd that the Apple TV is much better as a Netflix player than it is as an iTunes player. Since when do Apple products not play well with each other?!
Click to expand...

It sounds more like source issue rather than iTunes issue. What's the encoding source? I hate iTunes probably much as anyone but iTunes is not doing anything special with your file. It either plays or it doesn't.

iTunes share, AirPlay, mirroring. I really can't share your sentiment that Apple products doesn't play well with AppleTV. I guess you haven't tried DLNA with Android products. Talk about frustration.
 
JackSpadesSI said:
Right, I did the sharing thing and that works but I'm not happy with it. Two reasons: I have to keep iTunes running on my PC (which I don't normally do) and the picture quality of the one movie I tried to watch was absolutely terrible.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, why not just keep iTunes open? It can be a little RAM hungry at times (I've only ever seen it use around 500MB of RAM at the highest), but it doesn't seem very troublesome just sitting in the system tray (I believe minimize to system tray is not enabled by default).
 
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