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

I just installed a slightly newer graphics card in my old Mac Pro, and suddenly a whole lot of TV shows that I've watched previously on this same 30" cinema display are reporting this error. "This movie can be played only on displays that support HDCP (High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection)."

It's the same display I've used for years; the only thing that has changed is the graphics card!

Welcome to the club!

Once you install a graphics card with HDCP support in your Mac Pro, you can't play any iTunes HD content on your 30" Cinema Display. What's even more galling is that if you re-install your old graphics card as a second interface, you still won't be able to play iTunes HD content when you connect your 30" Cinema Display to your old graphics card.

The presence of a graphics card with HDCP support installed on the Mac Pro is detected by iTunes and prevents HD content from being displayed without a monitor with HDCP support. The 30" Cinema Display does not have HDCP support.

While HDCP appears to only provide point-to-point encryption between the graphics card and the monitor, it seems that the presence of a graphics card with HDCP support disables at least some of the software video decoding logic in iTunes. It's assumed that the monitor has the necessary hardware logic to perform the video decoding.

I had returned my new graphics to the vendor and re-installed my old NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT graphics card until I find something to replace my 30" Cinema Display. Apple doesn't want my business as they only offer the unusable glossy displays.

Is it even possible to contact Apple to vent about this. Does someone in the big fruit tree even read these forums. I'd love to be able to 'return' the movies with the cost of broadband added.😠

I have the same and my external display is an Apple 30" display. Are Apple monitors not HDCP compatible? If not then this is absurd. What about Apple TV? Will that still work?

Contacted Apple Support. Basically the story is as follows. HD content cannot be played on any non-HCDP compatible device. Period. This includes older Apple 30" displays. HOWEVER, for no extra (iTunes) cost you can also download the SD version and play that (you may need to explicitly ask for the SD version to be played as my default was HD).

Jack, it's not *entirely* correct that HD content simply can't be displayed on a non-HDCP device. HD videos played fine for me on my 30" Cinema Display right up until the day I upgraded my graphics card. Merton Crockett has it right in the thread above: Having a HDCP-compatible graphics card is what deactivates HD content on non-HDCP-compatible monitors. If NEITHER device is HDCP-compatible, then there is no such problem.

There appears to be no solution to this, other than downgrading to an older graphics card.

Thx. I have a new MBP so replacing the graphics card is not really an option. I don't suppose you can disable HDCP?

I find its only iTunes purchased HD movies that won't play on an external 30in Cinema Display and this only occurred AFTER I upgraded to Mavericks and iTunes 11.1.3.

ALL other non-iTunes HD movies still play perfectly (using the iTunes player) but those I purchased from the Apple store do not..

Essentially, I'm sitting with movies purchased in good faith that USED to work perfectly and now do not.

Suggestions please Apple!

Regards

MARK

I see this post still has action. I too was going nuts trying to figure this out. I could play some movies but not all and I'm very new to Apple but started playing with things and finally found something about Quick time player that you can play hd movies through quick time. I tried it and it worked, it actually goes online to Itunes and you play it through there instead of streaming through your desktop icon. Hope this helps some people that have tried everything else.

Just had a weird occurrence. Downloaded a couple movies from iTunes in HD format, and no video -- won't play. Trouble is that this set up has worked before, and I do not know what just caused it to stop.

One Mac, a 4-year old MBP is using the projector as a second monitor via MiniDisplayPort -> VGA, and while I've heard comments about VGA not working for HD content, it has, in the past. Now it seems to fail all HD content, including what we had bought and watched previously.

Also, a MacMini I control via Screen Sharing which uses the projector as it's sole "monitor" via an HDMI -> HDMI connection, also fails to play. When I unplugged the HDMI cable to see if it would display via Screen Sharing, there was some HDCP-related complaint dialog which popped up on screen. But when the HDMI cable was plugged in, and the projector otherwise displaying the MacMini's desktop, iTunes simply stuck at 0:00 and refused to play.

In both cases, the projector in question is a BenQ (model number not easy to find out right now) which does support 1080p and HDMI in, as well as the VGA in, and which works fine for *everything* but the content labeled "HD".

What the ****? This all worked a week ago. Did some iTunes update sneak in to screw us?

same experience as you when I tried to watch walking dead yesterday. Apparently they fixed the trick where you could mirror the monitor. Oh well. By the way, Amazon Video costs about same as iTunes and you can watch it on any screen you want, like a big kid! I know where I will be buying video in the future.

I thought Amazon would do the trick as well, but it's streaming only, no?
It doesn't allow you to download the video, that's how it keeps track of whether you own it or not.

iTunes allows to download the HD video, but you can only watch it on an external display if it goes there via HDMI cable, or some other intelligent variation of thereof. Huge pain for the consumer. But it is what it is for now.
If someone shows me another legal service to purchase HD videos and play them back on external devices via ANY cable - I'd switch to that in a heartbeat. Until then, it's either pirating movies, or dealing with the DRM restrictions to just one form of cable output - HDMI or newer Apple TV.

What I found troubling is that HDMI->HDMI is also now not working reliably for HD content.

Thank you for the tip of switching in Prefernces to Standard. Use videos in school and couldn't get them to play on Epson projector anymore.

Thanks