Moving rental film from iMac to MacBook

Question

Like many, apparently, I was perplexed that a rental film I downloaded on my iMac iTunes didn't appear automatically on my MacBook Air.
After much investigation, I found I could transfer the film, by cable, from iMac to iPhone:
plug in iPhone > open iTunes on iMac > select iPhone in sidebar > select movies menu > rental film should appear at top > move button
and then rinse and repeat from iPhone to MacBook Air.
My question: is there an easier way of doing this?
All macs and devices are recent models, authorised, on one Apple account and on wifi. I have no Apple TV.

Answer 1

Who else is perplexed?
No time to list all the similar threads on this forum and others, since all I want to know is how best to move rentals from one computer to another. Maybe try searching this forum for similar queries?
You can only have iTunes rentals on one device at a time.
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.
I understand that, but thanks for reiterating it, it may clarify the policy for others. All I want to know is what is the best way of moving rentals from one computer to another.
The FAQ you linked to gives the rules for moving rentals, but does not tell you how to do it. There is another Apple helpsheet somewhere, which I have read and used, which shows you how to do it by plugging in the cable and using "move" in iTunes. But I came to this forum wondering if there might be a faster, simpler way of doing it. Maybe wirelessly or direct from computer to computer. Since the helpsheet only addresses how to move from computer to phone and vice versa, not from computer to computer. The term used is in their rules is "devices", which in this context does seem to include desk computers and laptops.
I know I can do it via an iPhone by plugging the iPhone first into one computer and then the second. This seems likely a very 20th century way of doing things. It may be the only way, and indeed is starting to look like that from the lack of responses. But if there is another better way I'd like to know. Simple as that.
Not an attack on Apple, from whom I have purchased thousands of dollars of products per year since the 1980s, and with whom as a company I am generally very happy. Not an attack on the forum. Not even an attack on the unwieldy transfer mechanism which may well be a product of stringent licence agreements with content providers. And certainly not an attack on Apple's rules for rental transfers. Just a simple request for information about a very specific technical issue, how to move rentals from one computer to another, which will undoubtedly be of interest to many others searching the forum.
I know that I can purchase a rental directly from iTunes on to any device. That seems obvious and is not helpful once you have a rental on one computer and want to move it to another computer.