It's a studio licensing move. The 5th gen ipods do not have an authentication chip "time clock". All new iPods do.
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Movie Rentals Limited To Latest iPods
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I will bet you anything that this is why Apple moved everything to OS X because they were planning the whole movie thing with the new iPods, iPhone etc. It makes sense.
I will never rent from itunes again.
My girlfriend and I rented Ratatouille about a week ago, no problems.
Tried to rent Eagle vs. Shark last night, and got 5103'd (for those unfamiliar with the issue just google "5103 itunes rental")
The kicker is I'm not trying to do anything illegal. I just switched back from windows in bootcamp, and sometimes it likes to have fun with my clock settings (which I think was supposed to be fixed with Leopard, but is still an issue on my machine) ... so now itunes things I'm trying to cheat the system so.. they have my money and I can't watch my rental.
I feel very mistreated.. When DRM is abusing the people who try to honestly play by the rules, it's going too far.
If I could strip the DRM from the rental I would, just so I could watch the movie I payed for... so stupid, since I would have no issue with it if it WORKED. (although 3-5 day rentals would be nice, just like a real movie store.)
My girlfriend and I rented Ratatouille about a week ago, no problems.
Tried to rent Eagle vs. Shark last night, and got 5103'd (for those unfamiliar with the issue just google "5103 itunes rental")
The kicker is I'm not trying to do anything illegal. I just switched back from windows in bootcamp, and sometimes it likes to have fun with my clock settings (which I think was supposed to be fixed with Leopard, but is still an issue on my machine) ... so now itunes things I'm trying to cheat the system so.. they have my money and I can't watch my rental.
I feel very mistreated.. When DRM is abusing the people who try to honestly play by the rules, it's going too far.
If I could strip the DRM from the rental I would, just so I could watch the movie I payed for... so stupid, since I would have no issue with it if it WORKED. (although 3-5 day rentals would be nice, just like a real movie store.)
I was thinking this is the case but I hoped it wasn't true. The install base of 5th generation iPods is huge. All my friends have them. I think I know 1 person that still has a 4G and only one that has an iPod classic.
Poor move. I'm definitely not going to upgrade to an iPod classic. I'll just continue ripping DVDs and not renting anything from Apple.
Poor move. I'm definitely not going to upgrade to an iPod classic. I'll just continue ripping DVDs and not renting anything from Apple.
That truly sucks. So it only works on iPods bought from last September or later???!!!! Does Steve think we buy a new iPod every year? 
The thing that annoys me most is that there can be no technical reason why 5th generation users like my dad are locked out - it surely is just a software update. And I know from previous experience that you can only expect any software updates if your iPod is the newest version..
The thing that annoys me most is that there can be no technical reason why 5th generation users like my dad are locked out - it surely is just a software update. And I know from previous experience that you can only expect any software updates if your iPod is the newest version..
Ooo my first post Maybe its me but don't think it's that complicated??
- If you rent movies on your TV they stay on your TV
- If you rent movies on your computer, then you can move them anywhere.
I'd imagine rentals only work on the latest gen ipods due to Apple upping the quality of the video. Rentals are 853x356 (ish) anamorphic now whereas TV shows and bought content are still 640x360 (ish)
Maybe its me but don't think it's that complicated??- If you rent movies on your TV they stay on your TV
- If you rent movies on your computer, then you can move them anywhere.
I'd imagine rentals only work on the latest gen ipods due to Apple upping the quality of the video. Rentals are 853x356 (ish) anamorphic now whereas TV shows and bought content are still 640x360 (ish)
Well, in addition to the studio insistence already discussed, it's possible that it's a bandwidth-preservation model for the time being. These films are large (4-5GB) and from a quality-of-service standpoint, limiting the number of users makes sense.
It makes good business sense to release the best content for the largest displays (those connected to AppleTVs), especially when you factor in that the computer version can be tweaked to run in a window if the quality is insufficient for full-screen viewing.
The other thing that sets AppleTV apart is that it doesn't have to work with iPods and iPhones. Regular iTunes store content moves seamlessly back and forth, and the file sizes and resolutions are a compromise between practicality for portables and watchability on monitors. HD content is not iPod friendly--it's wasteful in space and in pixel count.
In the future, I'm sure HD content will be available on iTunes. It's just a matter of working out the details.
No, but "he" (contrary to popular belief, Steve is not Apple) thinks that people realize that products they buy come with a set of features and no guarantee for future freebies. Anything added is a bonus--rentals expire, so there must be a way to enforce that. It is fundamentally different from other iTunes content.That truly sucks. So it only works on iPods bought from last September or later???!!!! Does Steve think we buy a new iPod every year?
It's not. In a word: clock. Software is only part of it. Studios want secure clocks to dodge the oldest trick in the book, and only the latest iPods have them.
nope
Wrong.. as mentioned by others, the new ipods contain a secure "time chip" not present in the 5G. Probably ensures an accurate clock so you can't circumvent the time limit on rentals...
That truly sucks. So it only works on iPods bought from last September or later???!!!! Does Steve think we buy a new iPod every year?
The thing that annoys me most is that there can be no technical reason why 5th generation users like my dad are locked out - it surely is just a software update. And I know from previous experience that you can only expect any software updates if your iPod is the newest version..
Wrong.. as mentioned by others, the new ipods contain a secure "time chip" not present in the 5G. Probably ensures an accurate clock so you can't circumvent the time limit on rentals...
Are the HD rentals fake HD or the maximum size HD? If it is the fake HD then most laptops should be able to display those movies since the resolution is not that high.
Jobs may have mentioned it at the keynote, but the apple website still just says iPods, no mention of current ones only.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/movies.html
I also didn't see that restriction listed in iTunes, although I haven't rented a movie there yet. I hope if people are renting movies thinking they will work on a 5g or 5.5g, apple will give their money back.
My guess is they couldn't get the DRM working on the older models. I doubt they'd just disable the feature if there weren't any technical issues, it just means less income for apple, and it's not going to motivate many to upgrade. Downloads still haven't caught on yet, and apple can't afford to do anything that will keep them away from the widest possible audience. If it was a decision based on marketing and not tech, I wonder if apple would reconsider if there's a visible backlash, and especially if apple ends up having to give a lot of refunds on rentals to 5G owners.
Shame, I would probably have rented some, but I'm shut out of using it. By the way, there have been various threads about this already since the keynote.
And if they didn't, there would be people buying HD movies on their mac and mad that they wouldn't play on their iPod. Best case would be if the movies could play on any mac device or if HD downloads included both versions.
Where did you read that? It has been widely reported that iTunes rentals can get synched to aTV.
Have you contacted apple and asked for a refund or another authorization of that movie (and reported the bug)? What was their response?
And you insist that based on...what?
They are 720p. I'm not sure what you mean by fake/real since there are multiple HD formats - something is either HD or its not.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/movies.html
I also didn't see that restriction listed in iTunes, although I haven't rented a movie there yet. I hope if people are renting movies thinking they will work on a 5g or 5.5g, apple will give their money back.
My guess is they couldn't get the DRM working on the older models. I doubt they'd just disable the feature if there weren't any technical issues, it just means less income for apple, and it's not going to motivate many to upgrade. Downloads still haven't caught on yet, and apple can't afford to do anything that will keep them away from the widest possible audience. If it was a decision based on marketing and not tech, I wonder if apple would reconsider if there's a visible backlash, and especially if apple ends up having to give a lot of refunds on rentals to 5G owners.
Shame, I would probably have rented some, but I'm shut out of using it. By the way, there have been various threads about this already since the keynote.
And if they didn't, there would be people buying HD movies on their mac and mad that they wouldn't play on their iPod. Best case would be if the movies could play on any mac device or if HD downloads included both versions.
Where did you read that? It has been widely reported that iTunes rentals can get synched to aTV.
Have you contacted apple and asked for a refund or another authorization of that movie (and reported the bug)? What was their response?
And you insist that based on...what?
They are 720p. I'm not sure what you mean by fake/real since there are multiple HD formats - something is either HD or its not.
Simply put, people are stupid. The articles at the beginning of this thread only prove this point. It is stated in many places (and in the keynote) that rentals were only for current-generation iPods, yet they don't get it and complain.
Can you imagine how pissed someone who "doesn't know better" (i.e. too lazy to read before purchasing) would be when the HD version of "Jackass" doesn't sync over to their iPod Touch? The reason they are locking it the one iPod-family device that can handle HD (and now AC3 5.1) is to protect themselves from the idiots who don't bother reading and simply complain because it doesn't work like they think it should.
So let me get this straight...
Steve Jobs wants people with other options to invest in Apple hardware, and then on top of that, pay for rentals that only work with Apple hardware. OK, fair enough, but why limit the audience?
I will not be buying any of the current-generation ipods. I like my 5.5g, and I don't like any of the current ones. The Touch is intriguing, but it is a no-go for me until it is at least 60gb. When that happens, I'll buy one.
Even if it's hard-drive based.
So because I refuse to buy a set-top box that is so locked-down and uni-functional, a box that any other content provider would happily "lease" to me for free if I were giving them money on a regular basis (cable co/sat co/netflix), Apple has effectively excluded me from their plans. I think this is a move to kill the mac mini, honestly. That, and "force" people to buy away from the 5g ipods that everyone likes better than the new ones...
If you could rent HD movies on a mac mini, then you'd have an apple TV with a faster processor, 1080p capability, an OPTICAL DRIVE, USB tuner card potential, FW hard drive potential, and a dozen other things that are lacking in the aTV. Hook a mini up to your plasma TV, and you've got a fully functional computer that can do everything an aTV does, but better, plus a bunch of other things, too.
All of that in a box that is still the smallest thing in your entertainment center.
When the netflix HD streaming service comes online for OS X later this year, iTMS rentals that only work on one device will be a thing of the past, even if Apple pretends otherwise and continues to push them through. the iTunes Video Store has been a flop so far. limiting its usefulness in any unnecessary way is only going to make it worse.
Steve Jobs wants people with other options to invest in Apple hardware, and then on top of that, pay for rentals that only work with Apple hardware. OK, fair enough, but why limit the audience?
I will not be buying any of the current-generation ipods. I like my 5.5g, and I don't like any of the current ones. The Touch is intriguing, but it is a no-go for me until it is at least 60gb. When that happens, I'll buy one.
Even if it's hard-drive based.
So because I refuse to buy a set-top box that is so locked-down and uni-functional, a box that any other content provider would happily "lease" to me for free if I were giving them money on a regular basis (cable co/sat co/netflix), Apple has effectively excluded me from their plans. I think this is a move to kill the mac mini, honestly. That, and "force" people to buy away from the 5g ipods that everyone likes better than the new ones...
If you could rent HD movies on a mac mini, then you'd have an apple TV with a faster processor, 1080p capability, an OPTICAL DRIVE, USB tuner card potential, FW hard drive potential, and a dozen other things that are lacking in the aTV. Hook a mini up to your plasma TV, and you've got a fully functional computer that can do everything an aTV does, but better, plus a bunch of other things, too.
All of that in a box that is still the smallest thing in your entertainment center.
When the netflix HD streaming service comes online for OS X later this year, iTMS rentals that only work on one device will be a thing of the past, even if Apple pretends otherwise and continues to push them through. the iTunes Video Store has been a flop so far. limiting its usefulness in any unnecessary way is only going to make it worse.
"It just works."
what ever happened to that?
what? oh, it moved to the xbox live movie store?
bummer.
Netflix HD streaming service??? As far as I know (I can't use the service since it doesn't work with OSX), the quality of the streaming is DVD resolution.
Haha, the xbox live movie store works on a whole 1 device... not a family of devices. I could even make a service that "just works" if its only for one device.
Is Jobs the next George Lucas of computing?
As much as I really like Apple's products (and as many of them as I own and regularly upgrade!), I've also come to a realization. Steve Jobs, while obviously a great CEO and spokesman for Apple, really seems to have an attitude similar to George Lucas and his Star Wars fans and franchise.
That is, he seems to almost have a distaste for his biggest fans. Just like Lucas with "Star Wars", the people who view it as "something that changed my life" and "a huge event in the grand scheme of things" are shunned.
Apple's early adopters are constantly punished for their loyalty. First revisions of Apple products are WELL known for having bugs and glitches that the early buyers often have to file class action lawsuits to get corrected, while the fixes go into later revisions at no charge to everyone else.
Then you have cases like the iPod Touch, where people were charged $20 for software that's included free in later revisions, and the iPhone where people were "rewarded" for waiting in line to get the first units by a $100 price cut afterwards. (Yeah, Jobs did give them a credit because even HE couldn't get away with that one, without pissing too many people off. But think about it. It was never a cash-back refund. It was an *in-store credit*. So it ensured all the money still went back to Apple somehow.)
I think the bottom line is, Apple is a company making really good products, and they've got a pretty good "vision" of how to do things better than the next guy. But regardless, their CEO is *not* really a "nice guy". (Look how he treated that "Violet Blue" gal when she tried to ask Jobs for a photograph at the MacWorld Expo. He refused and told her "You're rude!" Huh?! He was standing there by himself, not in the middle of a conversation or anything, and she seemed to ask politely. Sorry Steve, but the only rude one there was YOU.)
As much as I really like Apple's products (and as many of them as I own and regularly upgrade!), I've also come to a realization. Steve Jobs, while obviously a great CEO and spokesman for Apple, really seems to have an attitude similar to George Lucas and his Star Wars fans and franchise.
That is, he seems to almost have a distaste for his biggest fans. Just like Lucas with "Star Wars", the people who view it as "something that changed my life" and "a huge event in the grand scheme of things" are shunned.
Apple's early adopters are constantly punished for their loyalty. First revisions of Apple products are WELL known for having bugs and glitches that the early buyers often have to file class action lawsuits to get corrected, while the fixes go into later revisions at no charge to everyone else.
Then you have cases like the iPod Touch, where people were charged $20 for software that's included free in later revisions, and the iPhone where people were "rewarded" for waiting in line to get the first units by a $100 price cut afterwards. (Yeah, Jobs did give them a credit because even HE couldn't get away with that one, without pissing too many people off. But think about it. It was never a cash-back refund. It was an *in-store credit*. So it ensured all the money still went back to Apple somehow.)
I think the bottom line is, Apple is a company making really good products, and they've got a pretty good "vision" of how to do things better than the next guy. But regardless, their CEO is *not* really a "nice guy". (Look how he treated that "Violet Blue" gal when she tried to ask Jobs for a photograph at the MacWorld Expo. He refused and told her "You're rude!" Huh?! He was standing there by himself, not in the middle of a conversation or anything, and she seemed to ask politely. Sorry Steve, but the only rude one there was YOU.)
autrefois
macrumors 65816
I don't remember, and I'm not going to waste time looking it up, but my guess is that Steve said that video rentals work with "all current iPods" or "all current iPod models".
Did he say "only" with all current iPods? I highly doubt it. He's not going to draw attention to the fact that the vast majority of iPods that people currently own will not work with this service.
He was deliberately imprecise. And, as pointed out by others, iPod shuffles are also "current iPods". All video-capable iPods released September 2007 or later would have been what Steve should have said.
Am I going to say that Steve was too stupid to understand what the word "only" means, or unable to understand a calendar? No. He didn't want people to think about the fact that it won't work with most iPods. That is his right and completely understandable given the purpose of his keynote: to draw attention to the great new things coming from Apple.
Neither am I going to say that Joe consumer is too stupid to understand that his iPod isn't a "current" model. Ignorance of iPod release dates, or classification of the currency or not currency of a given model, is not tantamount to stupidity.
Many places? Where?
The average person doesn't listen to the keynote, and that's the only place I've come across it.
As I linked above, the page on apple's website just says "ipods" and makes it sound like it works on any video ipod.
Looking at iTunes, I see no mention of it on rental pages, or in the boxes that pop up asking if you really want to buy. It's buried in the TOS, but how many people dig through that. The info shouldn't be hidden, and apple's OWN WEBSITE should get it right.
Seriously, how is a 5G owner supposed to find out this limitation? Show me.
Are you sure? That I can understand then, if there's some actual physical hardware in there that the DRM needs. If it's just that they won't write an update for the 5G's software to do it, then that's just lame (and stupid for them too since they won't get the money from the rentals, along with ill will.).
granny smith
I love Apple, but I can't help feeling mad about them putting the squeeze on their loyal customers like this... Apple TV Take 2 to watch HD movie rentals... LAME! For this, I stay with Netflix. Way cheaper and much more selection. Boo Apple.
I love Apple, but I can't help feeling mad about them putting the squeeze on their loyal customers like this... Apple TV Take 2 to watch HD movie rentals... LAME! For this, I stay with Netflix. Way cheaper and much more selection. Boo Apple.
Hmmm, I understood it to be "current" iPods from the first day the service was announced. Don't recall where I read it or heard it, but it was clear to me. My guess is that all these inconveniences occur as a result of duplication concerns and perhaps operating system differences. I have a 2007 car, it does not have all of the features of the 2008 model, some of which are major, should I be upset? Products and technology move on.
There's a gigantic difference though. The iPod is a computer. It's software can easily be rewritten. If all this is is software support, the 5G iPod can do it.
If, like another poster said, it's actually some physical DRM related chip that's needed, then I understand that they don't have a real choice. But if it's just software, it's unacceptable.