This video is in a format that can’t be streamed to this TV. WHY?

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Level 1

31 points

This video is in a format that can’t be streamed to this TV. WHY?

Here we are again. I asked this back in April and I still don’t have a logical answer.

I purchased several more episodes of shows recently on iTunes completely my seasons. Some will play, but all the latest downloads say this video is in a format that can’t be streamed to this TV. I’m streaming from an iPad Pro.

Ok why?

why is Apple selling formats you can’t stream?

do I need a different tv? Is there a tv it would stream to?

It’s not a HD vs SD issue as some episodes that will play are in fact HD.

I am using an Apple TV A1625 using 13.4.6 tvOS

I have download options set to high quality on both cellular and wifi. I don’t see why that would matter if it’s purchased off iTunes. Anything should stream. Why buy a video and not get high quality? And again, other HD videos play fine.

Would love to know how to fix this if anyone has any ideas! Thanks!

Apple TV HD, tvOS 13

Posted on Jul 17, 2020 4:36 PM

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Answer 1

WESiii Author

Level 1

31 points

Jul 18, 2020 11:25 AM in response to Urquhart1244

I tried changing to SD that did nothing as well and fast downloads did nothing as I said before. i redownloaded one to check and it still won’t stream.

What i really don’t get is I have never touched those settings. Why would I? Until now. So it appears when I download them from iTunes on a PC and/or (I am not sure which I would have done) transfer purchases from my iPhone and then sync those to my iPad all works fine.

Apple makes no sense sometimes. You buy content for the purpose of streaming and Apple can’t get it right.

Maybe Tim Cook should spend less time worrying about politics and more time making sure his products work across the board. Since that’s why we are all here. I buy content on iTunes to watch not just to help Apple’s stock price.

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Answer 2

Urquhart1244

Level 10

149,234 points

Jul 18, 2020 7:27 AM in response to WESiii

To me, it appears to be an issue with the format as it is downloaded to the iPad. Specifically, .m4v versus .movpkg (HLS).

Macs would have download options to uncheck like "Download Multichannel Audio" and "Download HDR when available", to aid in forcing .m4v, but apparently iPads do not currently, and have different settings (just Fast Downloads to avoid HDR).

(Note that you will have to re-download the content for these changes to take effect: it applies to new downloads from that moment on.)

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Answer 3

WESiii Author

Level 1

31 points

Jul 17, 2020 6:07 PM in response to WESiii

I changed download options to “fast downloads” on both cellular and WiFi and redownloaded an episode.

Same thing. Won’t stream.

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This video is in a format that can’t be streamed to this TV. WHY?

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