Q: I have just bought an iPod touch and rented a movie from iTunes. The movie appears in iTunes under Rented Movies, but I don’t see any way (in iTunes 9) of moving it to the iPod. The “Videos” tab does not have the two-column appearance – only the means to manage syncing.
Any ideas how I can move the rented movie to the iPod touch?
– Chris
A: If you are using iTunes 9 and a recent-model iPod touch there should actually not be a “Videos” tab in iTunes but instead separate tabs for “Movies” and “TV Shows.” Options for transferring Rented Movies normally appear under the “Movies” tab as one would expect. Assuming that you purchased a brand-new, current model iPod touch it’s likely that you’re already running a semi-recent firmware version, but it’s worth noting that old v1.x versions of the iPod touch firmware did not provide support for Movie Rentals; this was added in the v1.1.3 update in January 2008. If you’ve purchased an older, used iPod touch model this is something worth considering.
Keep in mind also that the iPod touch does not support High-Definition (HD) rentals, so if you have rented an HD movie you will only be able to watch it on your computer or transfer it to an Apple device that does support HD such as the iPhone 4, iPad or Apple TV. In this case the options to transfer rented movies does not appear on the iPod touch settings as iTunes cannot find any compatible movies in your library.
It may also be worth re-authorizing your computer for your iTunes Store account, particularly if this is the first item you’ve purchased and tried to transfer to your iPod touch.