Article
Watching Rented Movies on Multiple Devices
By Jesse Hollington
Social Media & Software Editor, iLoungeGoogle+
Published: Monday, March 18, 2013
Articles Categories: Ask iLounge, Apple TV, iOS, iTunes
Ask iLounge offers readers the opportunity to get answers to their iPod-, iPhone-, iPad-, iTunes-, or Apple TV-related questions from a member of the iLounge editorial team. We'll answer several questions here each week, and of course, you can always get help with more immediate concerns from the iLounge Discussion Forums. Submit your questions for consideration using our Ask iLounge Submit Form. We reserve the right to edit questions for grammar, spelling, and length.
Q: I have two Apple TVs in my home, one in my bedroom and one in the family room. If I rent a movie on either of my Apple TVs, it shows up on both and I seem to be able to start or continue watching it from either. I’m wondering, however, if there is a way to access a rented movie on my iPad or iPhone? A friend of mine seems to think this is possible, or at least was with the original Apple TV, but I can’t seem to figure out a way to do it. Any suggestions?
- Erik
A: With the second- and third-generation Apple TV models, any movies you rent can only be accessed directly from the Apple TV, although as you’ve noted they are shared between multiple Apple TV devices using the same iTunes Store account. These movies are actually streamed directly from Apple’s servers and only temporarily cached on the Apple TV during viewing; for whatever reason Apple has not chosen to make these rented items available to other devices.
If you know before you actually rent a movie that you may want to watch it on different devices, however, you can choose to instead rent it directly through iTunes on your Mac or PC. Movies rented in this manner can be streamed from your computer to any Apple TV on the same home network, or can be transferred to an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. For the Apple TV, rented movies will simply appear alongside your purchased movies under “Movies” in your “Computers” section; if you have video playlists enabled in your Apple TV settings, a “Rentals” virtual playlist will also appear if there are any rented items in your iTunes library.
For viewing an iTunes-rented movie on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, you must move the rental to a specific device using the iTunes sync process; once moved, it can be viewed only on that specific device until it is moved back. All of the same rental time restrictions apply and will transfer along with the movie rental.
You can also rent movies directly from the iTunes app on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch, however you will only be able to watch these directly on those devices, or streamed to an Apple TV via AirPlay; movies rented on an iOS device cannot be transferred back to iTunes. Note that this restriction only applies to 2010 and later iOS devices, namely the iPad, iPhone 4/4S/5 and fourth- and fifth-generation iPod touch.
Keep in mind as well that movies are not streamed to an iOS device, but are instead downloaded, and you must therefore have enough storage on your device for whatever movie(s) you are renting until you have finished watching them; on average this is about 1.5GB for a standard-definition movie, 4GB for a 720p HD title, or 6GB for a 1080p title, depending of course on the length of the movie.
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