I rented a movie via iTunes on my new Mac Book Pro. I would like to watch it on my Gen 2 Apple TV but it does not appear in the Movies area. Home Sharing is working because Apple TV can find my photos. Do you have to rent movies through the Apple TV in order to watch them on that device? Thanks
MacBook Pro with Retina display, iOS 7.1.2, New Mac Book Pro
Hello wyeast,
Thanks for using Apple Support Communities.
You can watch the movie on the device you used to rent it. Please see the following support article for more information about renting movies from the iTunes Store.
Where can I watch movies that I rented?
- Mac or PC
- iPhone, iPad, iPod touch (with iOS 3.1.3 or later)
- iPod classic, iPod nano (3rd, 4th, or 5th generation)
- TV using Apple TV
Watch your movie on the device you used to rent it. If you rented the movie on your computer, you can move it to an iOS device or Apple TV (1st generation). To do this, 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 much 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’t stream a rented movie from your computer to your Apple TV using AirPlay because it’s DRM (Digital Rights Management) protected content.
FAQs about renting movies from the iTunes Store
Take care,
Alex H.
The movie must be fully downloaded in iTunes on teh Mac - Mac and iTunes need to be running with Home Sharing enabled.
The rental then appears under the Computers icon in a Rentals category you only see when there's a rental on a local computer to view.
Thanks for the responses. Alley_Cat, based on what I am seeing, Alex's response appears to be correct. The movie is downloaded to the Mac, Home Sharing is enabled but the rental cannot be found even after using the Settings option to check for Rentals. As Alex suggests, it looks like l am limited to only watch the rental on the device that was connected to the store to make the rental. That is really surprising and disappointing to me. It seems like I should be able to watch a rental that was purchased with my account on any device that is active using that same account. So much for the excellent integration of Apple products that some people seem to rave about.
With an Apple TV 2, you can rent movies on a computer and watch it via home sharing on the Apple TV. However just as Alley Cat suggests, it needs to be fully downloaded to the computer before it will show up on the Apple TV. Additionally with the Apple TV 2, you need to ensure you that you are trying to watch a 720p movie and not a 1080p movie. Finally make sure you are looking under rentals in the computers section of the Apple TV and not the movies section.
Thanks for the clarification WC. I will give it another go with the guidance in these posts.
This is a defect as far as I'm concerned. I've rented a couple of movies on the laptop and tried to view on Apple TV. Only way is to download in full, and then use either airplay or play what's on your computer. I gave up and got a refund. Apple really needs to fix this.
Thanks for the guidance everyone. The full download and then finding it in the Computers area works. Not exactly intuitive but it does work. Apple could do better with this functionality as I would likely rent more movies if it were more efficient.
Movies rented on a Mac Book are not recognized by Apple TV
