Apple TV/Home sharing ...... Why does it need an active Internet connection?

No, home sharing itself does not grant authorization to play DRM content. That is the point.

"No, home sharing itself does not grant authorization to play DRM content. That is the point."

Ugh. Ok, let me retry getting the point over another way.

Why not? Why can't Home Sharing (once confirmed via an online connection to Apple) give authorization to play DRM content thereby removing the need for an Internet connection?

We can talk details all day long, the issue remains the same. There's no reason given as to why this couldn't be fixed.

When enabled, home sharing is simply verifying your ID which then grants access to play your local (non-DRM) content. Each iTunes video purchase needs the authorization as it is being streamed and does not reside on the Apple TV. It isn't something Apple can change, this is due to the agreement with the provider. Case closed.

"It isn't something Apple can change, this is due to the agreement with the provider."

How do you know that? Anything to back up this at all?

It grants access to play DRM and DRM free content from your other devices at home. Hence authorizing it. If I cant even play DRM free videos then something is wrong. I'm not sure you understand that we've already authorized our devices to play purchased content. It's ALREADY authorized to play. Just like an iPod is authorized to play DRM music. You dont need a network connection to play the music on your iPod. So content is already authorized to stream to the Apple TV. We are not talking about sharing with other people. So no "case not closed". Pretty sure Apple has power to make changes. Just like they got the Music industry to allow them to sell DRM free music. But again, something is wrong with home sharing since I cant play DRM free video which has nowhere to go authorize itself. It DOES NOT need authorization. Case Not Closed. Perhaps read what people are writing.

Here's a support article from Apple that you probably will not read. Internet connection does not work with an IP address space of 169.254.xxx.xxx from ISP, router, or manual configuration … stating that movie trailers and rentals will not work without internet access, which is totally understandable. It does not say anywhere that purchased and downloaded items can not be used with home sharing without internet access. Which, as I said before, makes me think that there is an Apple Tv bug keeping movies from being used over home sharing without internet access.

* Apple TV may be able to use Home Sharing with computers on your local network, but not any features that require Internet access, such as movie trailers or rentals.

Hi,

Well after reading as much as I could find on this subject I went out and bought an Apple airport extreme as I read the router can sometimes be the issue.

Set everything up. Made sure Home Sharing was working (with internet connection).

Disconnected from the internet and Downloaded iTunes movies streamed from my Macbook Pro to AppleTV 4 with no issue.

So all that above about it being a DRM requirement doesn't seem to be the case. It's working for me here now just fine.

I use an older model Airport Extreme with the latest firmware which maybe doesn't play well with the latest home sharing. Might be something in the TvOs that keeps it from working with certain routers. But yeah, definitely not a DRM issue since it wouldn't work for me with videos I have without DRM. I didn't get much of a chance to trouble shoot since my internet came back fairly quick. Just went back to watching hulu. It is something Apple needs to look into since their documents say it should work without internet access.

Quick update to this. After 3-4 days of this working fine (i.e. no Internet connection) my iTunes movies disappeared from the AppleTV again. A quick connection to the Internet seems to have renewed something as they are all back and working again without an Internet connection.

So it's NOTHING to do with DRM. The AppleTV seems to 'call out' every now and then (a few days for me it seems).

I've submitted another bug report to Apple. Hopefully it gets fixed soon but at least with the Airport Extreme it's working for me most of the time. I can live with a quick connection twice a week to get everything back in Sync.