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iTunes Extras Menus not playing on AppleTV???

Hello,


I have 3 iTunes Extras movies.


When I play them on my Mac they work fine, but on my AppleTV the motion menus do not work. They just show a still picture and only one plays the music.


The iTunes Store page says that they work on a 1st generation AppleTV.


They are on the AppleTV and not streaming from from my Mac.


Is there anything I can do to fix this?


The movies in question are Thor, Captain America and Cowboys & Aliens.


I think that the still picture on the menus is the background images that frame the motion menus when played on a Mac and Cowboys & Aliens is the only movie where music plays with the menu on AppleTV.


Cheers

Posted on Jan 6, 2012 6:16 PM

Reply
10 replies

Jan 6, 2012 7:05 PM in response to NeddySeagoon

I do not belive it is possible to watch iTunes Extras on the Apple TV:


http://www.apple.com/itunes/whats-on/#movies


User uploaded fileMovies


Buy or rent movies and start watching them in minutes.


From comedy to drama, romance to classic, independent to thriller — movies, movies, and more movies await you on the iTunes Store. Browse thousands of releases from every major Hollywood studio. Buy or rent them in standard or high definition and watch on your computer, iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or television via Apple TV. When you buy select movies, you’ll discover a world of special features called iTunes Extras, which includes interviews, trailers, and photos you can watch in iTunes on your Mac or PC.

Mar 8, 2012 10:58 PM in response to NeddySeagoon

Hi Neddy,


Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but just in case this is still a question for you, chances are that the iTunes Extras are actually behaving as expected. The hardware/software combo behind the Apple TV does not have the same processing power as a PC or Mac, and so built into the coding for iTunes Extras are a few lines that essentially tell the processor "if this is playing on Apple TV, only display a still picture, not the animated one". This is especially true if the menus contain video clips. It's unusual though that only one would play the background music - without knowing exactly what the Extras menus look like I really can't comment on what's happening there, but in general, background music is supported for menus in Apple TV.


It's disappointing the way Apple has treated iTunes Extras, both on its own and the way it interacts with Apple TV. They have not allowed for them to exist on the iPad even though it would seem a perfect fit of content and delivery method, and indeed removed their ability to interact with 2nd gen Apple TV. The developer kit for it - Tunekit - remains at version 1 - it has not seen an update since it was released in 2009, and comes complete with mistakes and comments within it from Apple developers saying "fix this" or "this is wrong".

Mar 9, 2012 2:51 AM in response to Alley_Cat

I agree, Alley Cat.


I don't watch any videos on my iMac, except the home movies I am editing, and I'd only use appletv for the extras.


I love movies and the behind the scenes info and I have been holding of getting into BluRay to see what Apple would come up with.


Apple now match BluRay for for video quality, but BluRay has (sometimes) DTS and extras (though not in all cases).

Mar 9, 2012 3:38 AM in response to NeddySeagoon

If you have got a Surround Sound set up of reasonable quality, also keep in mind that the Apple purchases or rentals offer 5.1, whereas BluRay often delivers lossless HD sound on the English track.

I only moved up to BluRay recently, and the sound improvement is as great as the Visual improvement from DVD to BluRay, IMHO.

I find Apple TV perfect for streaming the BBC iPlayer, checking out TV series & getting to rent a Movie way before it is released on Disc.

(I live in Germany, and a part where very few new Movies are screened in English, so Apple TV is a Life-Saver!)

Mar 9, 2012 6:36 AM in response to Alley_Cat

Ah, fair enough. I'd thought it was some limitation of memory caching or something within mobile Safari (since really all iTunes Extras are, are a series of web pages with links to multimedia content and some pretty CSS3 transitions). It just makes it even more disappointing that they seem to have no real interest in growing Extras as a feature.

iTunes Extras Menus not playing on AppleTV???

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