I have paid for a film and can play it without downloading it on my iPad but I cannot seem to do this with my MacBook Pro. How do I do this?

Question

Hello all,
I am looking for assistance with this. I have iTunes 11.1.5.
I want to play movies I have purchased from the iTunes Store without downloading them as my storage is limited. I seem able to do this on my iPhone and iPad but it does not seem to be available on this MacBook Pro with OS X 10.9.2.
I used to be able to do it as the film appeared as a box with a little cloud on the upper corner but they are not there anymore.
Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Many Thanks

Answer 1

Michael Murphy3 wrote:
As to your question of only wanting to stream, I would think that within iTunes Preferences/Advanced you could deselect "Add to iTunes Media folder when adding to library. That way you would be storing your purchase in the cloud, rather than in your iTunes Media Library, no?
I think no.   I think the movie is going to have to download.  I believe the only place to which movies stream is an AppleTV or if you are providing a source with Home Sharing.  Changing the preferences setting will only cause iTunes to leave items you add to the library in their original location instead og what it usually does which is put a copy in the media folder.  However, in the case of a download it will go there anyway since it will have to go somewhere and won't stay in its original location (i.e., Apple's server).