Digital Movie Storage for Apple TV?

I want to know why they don’t make the Apple TV a device that stores the movies you purchase you should be able to watch them with or without internet. It’s a waste of a purchase because it seems to me without the web I have no access to my movies and that’s not fair at all.

Apple TV is a hardware streaming box, not an app. You can store apps on the device, but not media (I.e. Movies, music). If you download music to your phone it will of course take space, but even streaming music could be cached depending on the app (Apple music no longer does this).

It is worth noting that you should always download and backup your purchases as things can change at any time and if something is removed from the iTunes Store you will no longer have access.

The TV App. (Not Apple Tv App, just Tv App) Is built into the Apple TV. It does not store movies at all. There is no place to store movies on an Apple TV.

The Apple TV streams the movies from either a computer on your network, or iTunes store (a.k.a the cloud) directly.

The TV App lets you access all your purchases from iTunes such as movies, Tv shows, videos etc.. as well as media from other providers all in one place. There is nothing stored on the Apple TV. It is all streamed. The TV App just provides a convenient location to watch everything you like from a single location.

All your movie purchases can be found in the TV App and can be played directly from there.

http://www.apple.com/tvos/

Ok sorry I'm no where close to being tech savvy... with Apple TV when you purchase movies they are stored right in the app? If I plan on strictly purchasing new movies through my Apple account so I can watch them from my Apple TV or phone/iPad how will they save? Bc my music is still saved and taking memory from my phone. But.. As long as I have the Apple TV app, movies will not take storage space from anywhere?

I was asking if I purchase the Apple TV device, and download the AppleTV app onto that device if it is possible to save purchased movies to that app. .. if not, how can I store purchased movies to watch them from my Apple TV device

There is no Apple TV app. If you have purchases you access them via movies app and they are streamed from the cloud. You would have to store them on your computer, and you can also use home sharing or airplay to stream from there to Apple TV over the local network.

The only device that had an accessible hard drive was the first gen Apple TV, which was significantly more expensive had heating issues etc. All devices in the market now are streaming only, and those purchases should be downloaded onto your computer (and backed up) anyway. An internet connection would be required for verification only (when streaming to Apple TV) and that is due to an agreement with the providers.

Why they don't make an Apple TV that stores media only Apple knows. We cannot speculate on Apple's decisions on these forums however.

The Apple Tv by definition requires an active internet connection to be most useful, like a Roku, or Amazon fire streaming device. It's how these devices work. Stream from the internet.

You can however, download your movies to a computer, and stream them from there over the network to the Apple TV without internet if required.

The ATV is a streaming media player rather than a storage device. You can store media (movies, tvshows, music etc) on your iTunes computer and home share locally or you can stream from the web. But you can't store anything on the ATV itself - storage is for apps/games only...

Movies bought from iTunes do not take up iCloud space. Once bought you can continue to download them to computers and iOS devices or stream them to an Apple TV as needed. They have nothing to do with your iCloud storage space.

Also, the storage on the new 4th generation Apple Tv is for Apps only. 3rd generation Apple TVs have no usable storage.

You can stream to the computer and they won't take up space on it either. But this is something you have full control over.

i.e as long as you do not download them to the computer, they will not take up space on it.

You can stream them directly on the Apple TV from the iTunes servers. But if you want to stream them from your computer, then they will need to be downloaded to the computer to be able to stream from there to the Apple Tv.

Other than that, if you are so concerned about space, perhaps an external drive for the movies may be useful.

Also note, that the movie rights holders can pull the movies from iTunes at any time, so you cannot count on them being available for download always or forever.

Unless you plan on having hundreds of movies, its a good idea to put them on an external drive.