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

OMG NOW THE MOVIES I BOUGHT WON'T EVEN PLAY ON THE COMPUTER SCREEN OF THE COMPUTER I BOUGHT THEM WITH.
I am not connected to an external display of any kind, and I get the message that my display (the actual laptop) can't play the film because it's not a supported display.

WOW.

Go ahead, keep stealing my money.

Hey guys! I've found solution! 100% work!!!

I have Nec HDCP monitor and Mac Pro 3.1. I have black screen trying ti play HD movies in iTunes.

So i went to the shop and bought a PC. I've installed iTunes on windows and connected it to the same MONITOR. and guess whaaaaat ....)))) It worked!
Now i can play HD movies in iTunes !!

NICE WORK APPLE! I won't buy any single mac! You showed me the way! 😎

Same problem, film bought on iTunes wouldn't play on BENQ projector, some message about HDCP. Bizarrely, all I had to do to make it work was pull the connecting wire out of my MacBook Pro, press play so that it started playing on my computer screen, then plug the projector wire back into the computer again, and it carried on playing on both.

Yep. I found this out the hard way while a class full of college students glared at me impatiently. Here is my tale of woe with the fix being to re-download a "fresh" SD version of the movie (which, by the way, was not easy to figure out how to do).

I purchased HD version of the documentary The Hunting Ground today via iTunes in order to show my comp students. I’ve used this particular Panasonic projector in the classroom dozens of times for movies, PowerPoints and other multimedia. There’s no HDMI, so my set up is a MacBook Air with Apple minidisplay port to VGA adapter to wall VGA wired to the projector.

Upon pressing play I received HDCP error message.

After some on-the-fly research, I found a thread offering the suggestion that I go into iTunes Preferences > Playback and change “Preferred Video Version” to “Standard Definition.” It didn’t work – still got HDCP error. I am guessing that although it may knock back the definition, it still sorta thinks it’s HD content for whatever reason and trips the HDCP error since the original file was in HD.

You can also “right click” on a film while in iTunes and get a dialogue box with options. One of them is Video Quality; however, the only options were 1080 and 720. I was in 1080 and switched to 720 -- still received HDCP error (but I knew that was coming).

So, basically there is no way to really “knock back” to SD version of an already downloaded HD version movie in a way that somehow avoids the HDCP error without actually re-downloading a brand new SD version of the movie, but therein lies the rub. Trying to re-download an SD version of an HD movie is way harder than you'd think because iTunes does not make it intuitive.

After much cursing and a class full of inpatient college students shifting in their seats, I realized that in order to mitigate this issue you need to go into your “Purchased” in iTunes and look to the lower right-hand corner and uncheck “Download HD when Available.” Then, and only then, could I go back and re-download the SD version and show through the projector without the HDCP error occurring.

It’s an extremely frustrating issue and one that just frankly shouldn’t exist. I am an avid Mac user with a bunch of Apple products (too many) and was surprised to find out the reason behind all this trouble I had. It seems like a very un-Mac thing for Apple to allow. It's not enough to send me packing and back to PC, but just super disappointing considering it was in an educational context and I had purchased the movie and downloaded the file to my local drive.

- James

Just paid for my first ever iTunes movie only to find I can not watch it. What's the point of buying a Macbook Air, Apple TV and downloading movies only to find all this HD compliant equipment can not play a HD movie? What a disappointment.

iTunes Never again. Going to Netflix.

I had this issue last night. I tried linking my MacBook up to the TV through just a generic HDMI cable.

I changed the HDMI cable to one off the Xbox (After trying several other ideas) and it worked!!

I was having the same issue, but it was inconsistent - sometimes the external display worked without a hitch, sometimes all I got was a frozen iTunes window.

Also: No problems playing any HD movie on Apple TV, without an actual television - just a high end monitor with an HDMI connection.

This worked for me with my MacBook Pro and a high-res monitor: 1) Uncheck screen sharing box in System Preferences. 2) Restart computer with monitor attached and on. 3) Select "Use as separate display" from top menu bar. 4) Open iTunes and play movie (This time it was "Captain America: The Winter Soldier.")

It worked like a dream for me - 1080 HD and all. 😎

My monitors are both ASUS brand - one is 24", the other is 30"/32", and computer and AppleTV run through internet only - I have no cable TV.

I have a Macbook Pro with a mini display port cable to a 55 inch Samsung and I can no longer watch the movies I purchased from iTunes on my monitor. It is kind of sad that they think pirating is causing the problem and not poverty.

Most people that pirate do not need to rent the movies anyway, so it is really just a resentful, greedy, over blown industry just lashing out at who they can lash out at. Most pirates have the movies before they are released by iTunes. I like to purchase the movies so I can watch them later on. I guess they do not want my business. Personally I believe the people that sell the movies are the pirates.

I am going to see if I can get a refund for all the movies I have.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

I just bought a new movie from iTunes and I got HDCP error.

If I bought it, it was to get working copy of the movie, in order to give money to the ones who made the film.

I am very disappointed to have bought something that does not work on my display.

It is the last time I buy a film on iTunes.

Well, I will continue to get unprotected movies because I am sure it will work...