If I rented movie on ITunes on Mac, can I watch on Apple TV

Except for the times when the movies don't show. Out of three attempts, only one show up that way on the Apple TV even though I can see them in iTunes. Generally its become enough of a paint that renting movies from iTunes is not worth the hassle, even though I like my MAC and Apple TV, this is another way that MAC's DON"T "just work".

Just spoke to Apple TV support. If you want to rent on your Apple TV, you have to rent FROM your AppleTV. If you rent on your computer, you have to watch on your computer.

This is ridiculous because my computer can successfully download a movie, but it always fails on my Apple TV.

AltitudeArts wrote:

Just spoke to Apple TV support. If you want to rent on your Apple TV, you have to rent FROM your AppleTV. If you rent on your computer, you have to watch on your computer.

This is ridiculous because my computer can successfully download a movie, but it always fails on my Apple TV.

That's not correct. You can rent on a computer and watch it on an Apple TV.

Post a video, then. Mine is set up properly, but there are no rentals, only purchases, visible. Apple Tech Support says you can't do it, either. And it won't mirror due to DRM. Please prove me wrong.

My guess is you are doing one of two things wrong and perhaps both.

Via Home Sharing

1. Rentals show up under computers not movies.

2. They won't show up on the Apple TV until they are fully downloaded on the computer.

You might also want to look at this:

from:

About renting movies from the iTunes Store - Apple Support

This is from Apple's support page: About renting movies from the iTunes Store - Apple Support

Watch rented movies

Watch movies on the following devices:

• A Mac or PC.
• An iPhone, iPad, iPod touch (with iOS 3.1.3 or later).
• An iPod classic or iPod nano (3rd, 4th, or 5th generation).
• A TV through Apple TV.

If you rented the movie on your computer, but want to watch it on an iOS device, connect the devices and sync using USB. When you move a rented movie from your computer, it will disappear from your computer’s iTunes library. You can move the movie between devices as often as you want, but you can only have it on one device at a time.

If you rented the movie on your iOS device or Apple TV, you can’t move it to any other device.

To watch an HD movie, you need to play it on a supported device: your computer, iPhone 4 or later, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation or later), or TV using Apple TV.

You can also stream a rented movie from your computer or your iOS device to your Apple TV using AirPlayafter it’s fully downloaded.

This is absolutely correct! Thank you for your assistance. Finding your response made my life so much easier. Again, thank you so much for your help.

I have two issues with my new Apple TV, and both apply to renting movies.

1) SD movies are not available to rent (as far as I can tell)

2) Rentals on my iTunes account (from my computer) do not show up in the Apple TV, so when I use Home Sharing and and "Computers" the stream is far too slow and basically unwatchable because of the lag. I feel like this is a HUGE mistake on Apple's part. Isn't the point of Apple TV to watch movies? Shouldn't they be making rental movies available no matter what device it has been rented from? I believe my questions have been answered in this thread already, and bottom line is Apple is not doing what they could/should to make the user experience better.

If standard definition rentals are not available to you, that is because you have selected to view high definition content.

If rentals downloading on your computer are slow to buffer to your Apple TV, that is a problem with your network and nothing to do with the Apple TV itself.

Yes I thought this was the case so I looked through all options on the Apple TV and it doesn't seem to have any SD options. Do you know where/how I would do this?

You should find it in the iTunes Store settings.

Get help playing or streaming content on your Apple TV - Apple Support

The last section on that support document deals with changing the video quality to SD on an Apple Tv specifically.

Here it is 2016 & your advice is still relevant. Thank you for explaining this. The only thing I can add is that after not getting results from your instructions I decided to turn off Home Sharing on my AppleTV although I had confirmed it was enabled on both AppleTV & my MacBook Air. Turning Home Sharing off, then turning it back on plus re-entering my iTunes password did the trick. The only question I have left is once the movie is started on the AppleTV do I have to keep iTunes running on the MacBook Air? It took over a half hour to figure this out and I'm not willing to risk crashing the movie which is being shown as I type. I suppose I'll find out at the end when the screen credits are running. 😕 Or maybe when the MacBook Air goes into sleep mode? Thanks again. PS. It's a shame what's happened to Apple now that it's primarily a phone manufacturer combined with services provider. (That from someone who's been using their products since 1986, and was a Mac technician in a school district for over 13 years, doing Mac support for 4 years previous.) 😟

In answer to my own question, iTunes on the device, in this case my MacBook Air which the movie was rented on, had to remain on the entire length of the movie to be shown via the AppleTV. You can hide iTunes but if you attempt to quit it then a warning appears advising that the AppleTV is using the shared library on the computer and will terminate once iTunes quits due to the shared library becoming unavailable. If you don't cancel the quit process iTunes automatically quits after a certain number of seconds. I didn't let my laptop go to sleep during the entire movie for fear of AppleTV losing it's connection so I can't confirm wether sleep mode would interrupt the library being shared. Not only is this process way too complicated to claim Apple's software is intuitive and "just works", Apple does an even worse job of explaining whatever hoops they've decided to put their customers through when they implement their latest decisions as to what to them may be "obvious". The features are there, however implementation & intuitiveness are no longer hallmarks of the brand.

If you stop to think about it, it is intuitive. If the Apple Tv is streaming from the media on the computer, it would require that both the computer and iTunes be turned on. The source of the stream is iTunes on the computer, so expecting the stream to work without either one being turned on is counter intuitive actually.

Not sure what hoops this would be. Its pretty straight forward once you set it up, and the setup is clearly explained.

Use Home Sharing to share iTunes content with other devices - Apple Support