Movie Rental Period

Can someone please help me understand Apple's seemingly draconian policy of allowing me only 24 hours to watch a rented movie? Why is it that the movie can sit on my iPod for 30 days unwatched, but as soon as I begin watching it, it is going to disappear in a day?
This policy shows a complete lack of understanding for my viewing habits, and I suspect, those of many others. Case in point: On a Monday morning flight for a two-day trip...begin watching a rental...after I conduct my business...I board a Tuesday evening flight back home...resume my viewing...sorry, expired.
I find the only way I can confidently watch an iTunes video rental is if I know I will be staying home, not traveling, and that is so anathema to the iTunes culture of being able to take your media with you whereever you go.
I'm trying to put a dollar value on how much business this policy has cost Apple. Were it like a conventional video rental, in which I had five days to watch, I would probably buy five videos a month. Instead I purchase less than one a month. In a business model that is based on the volume of .99 purchases, this has to be working against the company.
I would be grateful for hearing the thoughts of others on this.
Rick A.
Pleasanton CA

Can someone please help me understand Apple's seemingly draconian policy of allowing me only 24 hours to watch a rented movie?
Apart from telling you that is what the policy is, no on here can explain why iot's 24 hours and Apple has not stated any specific reason why it is this way though it's likely because the copyright holders want it that way.

Similar Messages

HT1415 You can move the rental between devices as many times as you wish during the rental period. However, the movie can only be played on one device at a time. If you rent a movie on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple TV, it is not transferable to an

You can move the rental between devices as many times as you wish during the rental period. However, the movie can only be played on one device at a time. If you rent a movie on an iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, or Apple TV, it is not transferable to any other device and you must watch it on that device.
This is a confusing statement. Can really move the rental between devices or not???

If you originally downloaded it to a computer, yes. If you originally downloaded it to an iOS device, probably not; if you want to try anyway, use the Transfer Purchases function in iTunes.
(85739)

HT201272 I accidentally deleted a rented movie before the end of the rental period, how do I download it again?

I rented a movie, watched it, then accidentaly deledted it. Now I want my family to watch it and the rental period (48h) is not yet past. How can I download it again ? Thanks

Rentals are a one-time only download, you will need to try contacting iTunes Support and see if they will grant you a re-download - try the 'report a problem' page to contact them : http://reportaproblem.apple.com
If the 'report a problem' link doesn't work then you can try contacting iTunes support via this page : http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact/- click on Contact iTunes Store Support on the right-hand side of the page, then Purchases, Billing & Redemption

HT3455 Are TV show rentals under the same rental period as Movies (i.e. 30 days)?

Are TV show rentals under the same rental period agreement as Movies (i.e. 30 days)? Thank you.

There are no TV show rentals, you can only purchase them.

I rented Bad Teacher and in the middle of me watching it, it froze and i had to quit it and then i could not watch the movie anymore. Where did it go? I was not passed any rental periods.

and then i could not watch the movie anymore. Where did it go? I was not passed any rental periods.

Babowa
Thank you for your prompt reply. I have bought 1 MacbookPor 17, 1 Macbook air, 1 MacbookPro 15 , 2 ipads, 3 iphones, and this iMac27 and 2 of iMAC24 or 20 not sure   but I do not recall ever doing what you are telling me in your reply.   When you get a extended car warranty, you don't   sign up for it.. it is just there and is included in the sale.   You don't buy this warranty to use it.. You buy it, in case something happens.   Here a perfect iMAC with minimum 100 hour useage has a dead drive. That is not normal and I should not have to even be requesting anything since most MFG offer a 3-5 year warranty on their disc drives and I believe that is probably passed on to Apple regardless if an extended warranty is purchased or not.   Customer service dictates a more flexible approach to make sure the lifetime value of a customer is not lost due to some misunderstanding.
I was in the MacStore that I purchased the unit..and they found and pulled the invoice and confirmed
the purchase of it in front of me. I had paid with credit card and fortunately it was there in their system.   I do not also recall recieving any box or paper although most everything I ever get remains sealed.. I am not in the habit of opening anything since I have never encountered any serious issues before.
   I have used my Macbookpro warranty 1 time and that is all throughout the years I have been investing in Apple equipment.
I just recieved a letter from the store asking me to get the paper to them so they can register it... I don't recall getting any paper actually. But I do have several boxes sealed here.. On this iMAC27, it was a hurry up and get it done thing and I don't remember taking anything extra with it.   Regardless, my request does not seem unreasonable.
Thank you

HT1657 do you get a discount if you buy the movie during the rental period?

i'm thinking of renting a movie. I would like to know if i rent it and enjoy it enough to buy the movie, will i get a discount during the rental period toward my movie purchase? Similiar to Complete my Album for the iTunes music store.

Thanks.
Apple please add some form of this into your store! Like Complete my Album I'm sure it would increase sales.
I know you just lost 1 sale =/

Rented movies disappear off iPad before rental period ends

Hi
2 of my rented movies (which had over 10 days left in the viewing period) randomly disappeared from the Videos app. I could see the movie covers in the Videos app, and then the app died. When I restarted the app, the "rental" tab was no longer visible. I cant seem to find the movies even if I connect the iPad back to my MacBook/iTunes
Any similar experiences/suggestions?
Thanks

Hi,
According to the iTunes Help viewer...
"A rented item expires 30 days after you rent it or 24 hours after you begin playing it, whichever comes first. Expired rentals are deleted automatically"
If you had started then stopped the movie(s), then it's possible the rental time expired.
More info here: http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/
Click: Video Purchases / Rentals / Move rental FAQ's...
Carolyn

Movie rental Q: How many times can you watch the film within 48 hours?

It's just I have 8 hours left on Into The Wild and I fancied watching it a second time, only it is not playing when I click on the thumbnail. It just says "accessing the iTunes store" for a few seconds. I've tried clicking play. Other films appear to work ok, just not this one. I assume that if it doesn't let me watch it a second time iTunes will give me free movie rental credit.

According to the FAQ "Once you've started to watch the movie, you have 24 hours to finish watching the movie (even if you start watching before the download is complete). You can watch the movie as many times as you want within this 24-hour period": iTunes Store movie rental usage
If you are having problems you should contact iTunes Store Customer Services.

Apple TV (v2) and movie rentals - my experiences, for what it's worth...

I’ve been reading a lot of posts over the past couple of days about problems streaming rented movies, and thought i’d share my experiences as i’ve had a couple of days of head scratching and frustration trying to watch one of my own:
I unwrapped an Apple TV v2 at the weekend, which was a gift form a friend, and tried it out by renting a movie. This was yesterday:
Now I’m a Virgin media customer in the UK, with 10MB broadband (wired), which I figured would be fast enough to easily stream HD video - and sure enough my rental started up and played fine. For about 30 mins...
After this it froze, and gave me the dreaded ‘loading’ dialogue, which showed 7 hours as my wait, and it got longer as the day went on - not shorter.
I gave up, and decided to come back to it later, which of course was a foolish move, as everything that had been buffered was erased and i was back at square one.
I then tried again today and had the exact same problem. After turning on, and being pleasantly surprised to see that my HD rental began streaming perfectly with almost no delay, I was again kicked off after about half an hour.
So i decided to look at my ISP’s terms and conditions, and sure enough there are cap’s on my data traffic of 1.5gb during the day, and 750mb in the evening (until 9pm). Exceed either of these and your traffic speed is cut back by 75% for 5 hours.
So i did some digging, and found that the average HD movie file size is about 4gb. This means that it’s impossible for me to stream and watch a film in one sitting, as i’ll never have enough uncapped bandwidth to stream the whole movie in one hit.
Now some folks have talked about getting ahead of the game, and beginning a download ahead of time (like first thing in the morning) so that by the evening a film is waiting for you no matter how long the download time. But even if this works, you run the risk of losing the buffered file by hitting the wrong button on your apple remote. This to me is unacceptable.
So lets drill down to the details here:
Problem 1: the manner Apple TV v2 stores video. I’m no technical expert, but understand that the latest Apple TV has no hard drive - rather an 8GB flash drive. This would be enough to download and store an HD movie as a semi-permanent file, but Apple TV v2 doesn’t do this - it just uses it as a streaming buffer, which is cleared out periodically, and is easy to accidentally lose.
Problem 2: my ISP just won’t allow the amount of data transfer required to stream an HD movie without capping my download speed. Not between 9am and 9pm anyway (i’m going to see if i can stream the end of my film later without the beggars cutting me off).
Problem 2a (more of a gripe): Apple TV doesn’t warn you that the file you’re about to stream when you rent a movie will very likely trigger your ISP’s bandwidth throttling policy. It might be in their small print, but it should be there in big letters at the point of sale, just before you hit ‘buy’.
The Solution: There isn’t a satisfactory one for me really. I don’t imagine I’ll be renting any more movies directly from Apple TV. It’s too pricey to take the risk that I won’t be able to watch it, so back to DVD for me.
Now I could rent or buy through iTunes, and then stream to Apple TV, as at least I’d have a ‘hard copy’ of the movie on my MacBook and would be safe in the knowledge that once i had downloaded the file i could watch it from start to finish without interruption - but this is also less than ideal. I can’t get HD movies from iTunes, i’d have to go through the ‘planning ahead’ phase of starting downloading early in the day, and there’s still no guarantee it wouldn’t trigger the bandwidth throttling if it was a long movie.
The only other solution would be to max out my broadband package, although currently the most expensive package (which costs double what i pay now) still had a 3.5gb cap, so could kick me off just as i’m near the end of the film. Plus, i don’t watch that many films to make the expense worthwhile.
To wrap up...
If you’re on a decent broadband connection that in theory should be able to handle HD streaming then check your ISP’s regs regarding throttling. Even with throttling on, YouTube, iPlayer and other similar sites still worked for me, as they’ll happily cope with reduced transfer speeds. Apple movie rentals won’t. This might explain why some can use these services perfectly at the same time as being unable to view their rental.
If you’re an occasional film watcher in a similar position to me, don’t bother with movie rentals. Unless you’re on an uncapped, unthrottled broadband package it’s unlikely you’ll be able to stream an HD movie in one hit due to the file size.
Back to Blockbuster Video for me i’m afraid. At least until we get NetFlix in the UK
Hope you have more luck than I did,
McGinty

Thanks for the pointers folks. Yeah, 1.5GB is pretty poor isn't it? There are other suppliers, but you have to get a their phone line installed to access the internet so it's an £85 setup fee plus a day off work for a guy to come round and drill a hole in your wall before you even get to the monthly costs.
Don't get me wrong though - I'm certainly not an Apple basher, but am equally frustrated with both them and the ISP.
Virgin Media spend all kinds of money advertising their broadband as the fastest in the UK, but don't tell you (up front anyway) that you'll be cut off if you actually try and use it.
Apple on the other hand carry on with their 'it just works' mantra, but with Apple TV this only applies if you meet certain criteria (again, not mentioned up front).
I guess it aint a biggie, as i was gifted my Apple TV, and love all the other stuff it does, but from the number of posts on this forum can see that there's a lot of angry customers out there who want explanations as to why they're having similar problems to me.
Will be very interesting to see if Apple release any kind of software update that turns the flash drive from a buffer to permanent storage, to at least ease some of the pain...
Message was edited by: McGinty

Movie Rentals + iTunes 7.6.1.9 = Wasted Money

Hi, I'm wondering if anybody else is experiencing the same problems I had with movie rentals. Non-rented movies play on my setup / installation. Upon renting a movie, and attempting to play it, iTunes will show the first frame of the video and play one second of the sound. At that point, iTunes locks up. The 24 hour period started to count down though. I sent Apple an email yesterday, but they have not responded yet. The movie has expired now.
This is caused by a bug in iTunes. Now that my iTunes has a movie rental, it places the movie rental in a separate category in the left of the iTunes window called "Rented Movies." When I click on that category, not selecting nor mousing over the movie rental window, but immediately clicking on the category "TV Shows," iTunes will now fail to play the TV Show video in the same failure mode that the movie rental movies fail. iTunes is only using about 10% of my CPU during the time it is locked up.

This was posted by Mimico Kid in another thread on the problem; perhaps it will help:
This can be a tricky problem to figure out since iTunes doesn't specify what file name is "invalid or too long" and there's no documentation on what determines if a file name is "invalid or too long".
We had one user report that he was able to use his/her keen eyesight to note the last file that appeared before the error message appeared and it turned out that file was the cause of his/her trouble.
If your eyesight isn't that keen, I'd suggest concentrating on the file name being too long possibility.
The entire directory path leading to the file is considered part of the file name so, as an example, iTunes' default settings might place a particular file at C:\Documents and Settings\ user name \My Documents\My Music\iTunes\iTunes Music\artist folder\album folder\whatever.m4a.
Is the directory path leading to your consolidated location much longer than that?
polydorus has suggested a way to look over your file names: Assuming your music is currently in the default location, make your way there with Windows Explorer and select List in the View menu menu and see if anything stands out as being unusual.

Movie rental won't play and doesn't show in library (not in video app)

I've downloaded the movie successfully. It is not in my iTunes library but when I search using Finder, it says that it is there? (location says iTunes/iTunes Media/Movies/TITLE) When I click to watch via the route file in finder, it rediects to iTunes movie folder but doesn't play and it still isn't on the list.
As it's a rental I'm sure that this will still be considered that I have started viewing so it will expire in 24 hours.
Any way to fix this and to 'reset' this so I can watch it and not have my rental period finished?
Thanks

If you are in the states, you may be able to re-download for free. The file may be corrupted.

HT4095 iTunes movie rental policies

I want to rent some movies to download to my iPad for a trip I'm taking. I wanted to know how long is the rental period & is there a limit to how many times it can be viewed??

1. Thirty days from the time of rental, or 24/48 hours from the time you start watching the movie, whichever comes first.
2. No, but all the viewings must occur within the second limit posted above.
(102964)

5102 on movie rental download?

Hi all,
I decided to rent The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. For some reason there was a network error and it never downloaded. I went on my trip, noticed it was not there and figured ok I'll take care of it when I get back.
Of course things got busy and I never did... The rental period expired but the download is still in my iTunes trying over and over... It keeps giving error 5102.
I've tried deleting it, it just keeps showing back up. Any ideas on how I can remove it so it doesn't keep trying to complete the download?
http://emberapp.com/markholbrook/images/itunes

I had the same problem. I ended up going to the iTunes support site and sending an e-mail to support. Here is the link to the e-mail page <http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/contact.html?form=download&topic=Downloadi ng%20iTunes%20Store%20Purchases&subtopic=Download%20errors>.
I got a response back that evening saying that they fixed my problem. Here's a copy of the response:
Hi Alan,
My name is Mike, an Apple Advisor from Charlotte, NC and I will be happy to assist you today. I understand that you have been receiving error 5102 while trying to remove The Soloist from your downloads. That was a great movie, Jamie Foxx was excellent, but I digress.
I have some good news for you. At this time, I have removed the content from your downloads, so it should not show up anymore.
I hope that this fully resolves your issue and you are able to continue to enjoy your iTunes experience. If you have any future issues, please remember that we are just an e-mail away.
Sincerely,
Mike
Apple Advisor
Charlotte, NC
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/

Movie rental wont play

I just rented two movies and they both finished down loading, i tried playing both of them and neither of them will. The screen just stays black and does nothing
any ideas?

From the iTunes Store Terms of Sale:
MOVIE RENTALS
Movies are viewable only on your Mac or Windows computer (using iTunes version 7.6 or later), iPhone, video-enabled iPod (iPod touch, iPod nano (3rd generation), or iPod classic), or on TVs using your Apple TV. Movies in high definition resolution (HD) are viewable only on TVs using your Apple TV and must be downloaded directly to your Apple TV. Movies are viewable only on one device at a time.
You must be connected to the iTunes Store when moving or streaming movies. Once a movie is moved, it is no longer viewable on the sending device. You may only move movies to another device from your Mac or Windows computer. Movies downloaded directly to your Apple TV may not be moved.
You have thirty (30) days after downloading a movie to begin viewing. Once you begin viewing, you have twenty-four (24) hours to view the movie (the “Viewing Period”). You may view the movie an unlimited number of times during the Viewing Period. Movies are not viewable after the thirty (30) day period. Stopping, pausing or restarting a movie does not extend the available time for viewing.
If you move a movie to an iPod or iPhone and then use iTunes to restore the iPod or iPhone before you finish watching it, the movie will be deleted and will not be recoverable. This also applies to choosing Settings > Reset > Erase all content and settings on iPod touch and iPhone.
Broadband Internet connection required.
For more information about Movie Rentals, please read the iTunes Store Movie Rental FAQ http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n307257

Some movie rentals i can transfer from ipad but most not! Whats the problem? They are all SD.

Some movie rentals i can transfer from ipad but most not! Whats the problem? They are all SD. Some are watched others not. It just seems to be a fluke sometimes that they show up in the rented movies when i sync. And bought movies I always have to manually transfer to my computer!

How did you rent them ? From http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1657 :
If you download a rented movie on your computer: You can transfer it to a device such as your Apple TV (1st generation), iPhone, iPad, or iPod if it’s a standard-definition film (movies in HD can only be watched on your computer, iPad, iPhone 4 or later, iPod touch (4th generation or later), or Apple TV). Once you move the movie from your computer to a device, the movie will disappear from your computer's iTunes library. You can move the movie between devices as many times as you wish during the rental period, but the movie can only exist on one device at a time.
If you download a rented movie on your iPhone 4 or later, iPad, iPod touch (4th generation or later), or Apple TV: It is not transferable to any other device or computer.

Movie Rental Period

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