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Level 1

15 points

iTunes movie purchases will not play on external display - HDCP auth error

Hello,

Well, I'm surprised there hasn't been more of a storm over this one already but I expect there will be.

Just got a new MacBook last week and finally found a mini Display Port -> VGA adapter so i could use my 19" external display. I rented a movie from the iTunes store yesterday and when I tried to play it on my external display, it gave me a warning/error that the display was 'not an authorized HDCP display' and it would not play. Plays fine on the small MacBook screen, just nothing external. To make it even worse, i tried all the movies that I have purchased from the iTunes store with the same result... NONE of them will play on anything but the MacBook's small 13" screen. This is crazy unacceptable.

Has anyone else run into this yet or have any ideas of something I may be overlooking in order to get purchased movies to play on an external display?

Thanks!

MacBook unibody C2D 2.0/2.0/160, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on Oct 26, 2008 8:12 AM

Best reply

Al Knowles

Level 1

5 points

Posted on Nov 4, 2008 9:58 AM

Same problem here as well. I guess they want to be sure we HAVE to buy an
Apple TV.

Not gonna happen.

I'll buy DVD's at my local retailer before that happens.

View in context

339 replies

Nov 18, 2008 4:01 AM in response to maxyourmacs

Hm, how many Apple users did I see scorning Vista and its content protection madness; agreeing with Peter Gutmann's searing critique of Vista[1].

And here we are now with Apple users who have spent thousands of dollars on Apple hardware (30" Cinema displays are not cheap!), buying films legitimately through Apple's store only to find themselves screwed when they just want to watch the film!!!

The deeper questions we should be asking is if Apple have done anything to enable end-to-end encryption. Vista made significant sacrifices to efficiency and stability to get there, what has Apple done to our OS? We have no technical details on this yet, but wouldn't Apple be improperly implementing HDCP (in spirit if not letter) if it didn't force end-to-end encryption from source to final destination, most of which has to go through your system?

----
[1] http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/vista_cost.html

xmatt

Level 1

0 points

Nov 18, 2008 6:30 AM in response to maxyourmacs

Yikes. I expect a lot of people are going to stop buying any video content from the iTunes store. Every one of my macs (laptops included) are connected to external displays, whether DVI monitors, HDTVs, or projectors. There is no way I'm buying any content that might not play when I upgrade -- the entire reason I do all this stuff with Macs is that it just works. If Apple is forced to do this with HDCP, then I wish they would have stuck with DVI and miniDVI.

MDTV

Level 1

0 points

Nov 18, 2008 8:57 AM in response to xmatt

I would suggest that people don't buy the shows and movies on iTunes - Apple should get the message that way!

norman56

Level 1

4 points

Nov 18, 2008 9:01 AM in response to iSilver

iSilver wrote:
This is EXACTLY how the producers of TV and movies want things, Apple is just doing what they have to do to be able to sell these video files, i.e. following licensing rules. It's unfortunate that us users have to put up with these restrictions because of all the pirates.

You might wish to think about the causality implied by that comment. One could argue that the pirates exist, or are at least are encouraged, because of the restrictions put on content by the studios/distributors that make it inconvenient for would-be legal users.

Nov 18, 2008 10:17 AM in response to xmatt

I'm a journalist trying to get a handle on this situation. If someone wouldn't mind explaining it to me for a story I'm working on asap please email me at elinor dot mills at cnet dot com. Thanks.

Peachey

Level 1

5 points

Nov 18, 2008 10:39 AM in response to maxyourmacs

One of the many reasons people hate vista...now on your mac.

Nice work apple

Gadget

Level 1

36 points

Nov 18, 2008 10:53 AM in response to Peachey

I have also verified that the same thing will happen with HD TV Shows off of iTunes. The saving grace here is that you get HD and SD versions of the shows when you buy the HD's and iTunes seems to automatically pick the right one for the system you're running. For you to trigger off the message using a display that's not HDCP compliant, you have to use Finder and launch the HD file from there.

Nov 18, 2008 10:55 AM in response to bradymac

People are reporting this on non-HD movies though. That seems likely to be a bug. No studio should be enabling HDCP on SD movies. I doubt that it is intentional.

As for TV shows, Apple made a big deal about HD TV shows being available. It seems very unlikely that they don't want those running on new MacBooks and MacBook Pros with external monitors. Since not a single LED 24" Display has shipped, 100% of all HD TV shows will not play on external monitors right now if this is intentional. It seems unlikely to me that is Apple's intent.

xmatt

Level 1

0 points

Nov 18, 2008 1:17 PM in response to Gadget

I wouldn't consider that a saving grace! I'm often connecting my mac to external displays *specifically because I want to watch HD content on them*. You could argue that silently dropping back to poor resolution is better than nothing, but it's certainly not what I would expect when I've paid for high quality content that I'm simply attempting to watch with standard viewing hardware.

elan360

Level 1

0 points

Nov 18, 2008 1:18 PM in response to maxyourmacs

This is an issue for projectors as well. Our company has decided to hold off on buying any new macbooks due to the lack of firewire. We may still buy some macbook pros, but no standard macbooks, which is what I was sending out to my sales guys. This is a real problem for those of us that use macbooks at home. What are you thinking Apple? Do you really think that ******* off your sys admins is going to help you long term? I am seriously becoming more and more jaded. And I have always loved macs.

bradymac

Level 1

0 points

Nov 18, 2008 1:50 PM in response to Gadget

I don't see that... mine pops the msg up and then leaves the screen
blank and plays nothing (I have both the HD and the SD content). I
would have expected what you say to happen (play the SD version if
it can't play the HD version) but it does not. The only
difference is perhaps that I have my iTunes files/database on an
Infrant network appliance/drive (exported via apple's protocol, not
NFS or SMB). Even if I open the SD version in Finder directly it
will still not play on my 23" Cinema display (well, based on the
timer it's playing but the screen is black with no sound, unplug
the display and it pops right up on the laptop w/sound & video,
plug the Cinema back in, all while playing, plays for a second
then poof, back to no sound and picture).

Anyone know how to at least get the SD version playing?

Nov 18, 2008 2:37 PM in response to maxyourmacs

Well I only have 3 movies I purchase with a gift certificate a while ago and I haven't tried playing them since I first saw them, sure thing they're not playing now. I'm not gonna buy a new screen just because of this, I didn't technically spend money on those movies so I'm not gonna worry myself to death. But this is very sad indeed. Sad because Apple is no longer standing up for its costumers anymore like it did back in the days when the iTMS started.

If we're not going to be allowed to play our videos on our current set up, they should refund us our money and disable the DRM on the videos we purchased. I'll take store credit, there is some iPhone apps I've had my eye on for a while.

Just my 2¢

ikir

Level 1

5 points

Nov 18, 2008 11:54 PM in response to MDTV

Probably it isn't an Apple decision at all. They know this choice would not be popular.

Nov 19, 2008 1:52 AM in response to maxyourmacs

There is no way im buying a new Mac now!

edhead

Level 1

0 points

Nov 19, 2008 2:17 AM in response to Demlotcrew

It will be coming to the higher end PCs as well (I'd be surprised if Sony doesn't have plans for this already. HDCP was originally designed by intel, and it's supported by Micorsoft as well as Apple. A lot of vendors will be bending over backwards to support this ridiculous studio-pushed technology.

Way to go to the studios and apple, you've just given people another incentive to pirate.

Also, there's several HDCP options as far as I know (unrestricted, constrained image output and digital only). I'm surprised they've gone for the most extreme option, I thought they'd at least allow a reduced res output.

iTunes movie purchases will not play on external display - HDCP auth error