My cable company offers the same thing for on demand movies. 24 hours. They don't really care if you fall asleep. It just means you have to pay for the movie again if you really want to finish watching it.
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New Apple TV Has a 30-Day Rental Loophole?
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My cable company offers the same thing for on demand movies. 24 hours. They don't really care if you fall asleep. It just means you have to pay for the movie again if you really want to finish watching it.
Meaning you never bothered to test it properly in the first place, but instead put out a message saying there was a bug.
All that would have been needed to see if it actually worked was to watch something, and then guess what?? Wait 48 hours and try watching it again. If you can watch it again then it is a bug, but if you can't watch it again then things are working as per normal, just silently.
I wonder why they don't just let you keep it for thirty days. It's not like it costs them any more to do that.
I suspect it's the movie studios being stingy bastards, and not Apple.
I suspect it's the movie studios being stingy bastards, and not Apple.
Isn't the time limit set by the Studios and not Apple? I have always said that the viewing period is too short and thought a minimum of 5 days, like that old brick and mortar store Blockbuster used to do or was that Hollywood Video?
Only work around that I have found is that if you pause a movie in ATV (at least the old one) and then came back to it after the expiration time, it still let you finish the movie. Which I thought was pretty cool given that Xbox just stops it dead cold...at least it did a few years ago. Haven't rented a movie in Xbox in ages.
Only work around that I have found is that if you pause a movie in ATV (at least the old one) and then came back to it after the expiration time, it still let you finish the movie. Which I thought was pretty cool given that Xbox just stops it dead cold...at least it did a few years ago. Haven't rented a movie in Xbox in ages.
You shouldn't care, and neither does Apple. The content providers impose these rules on all distributers because they care. That is why any well publicized loophole will be closed.
I've found with my new Apple TV that it often doesn't mark shows as watched after we have... watched them. These are just shows I've downloaded via Bit Torrent and put into iTunes.
Sometimes iTunes thinks the first few minutes have been watched, mostly it doesn't register any viewing at all.
Probably related to the rental bug.
Sometimes iTunes thinks the first few minutes have been watched, mostly it doesn't register any viewing at all.
Probably related to the rental bug.
Feew! I was afraid you were going to say:
...My wife often falls asleep during a movie and sometimes it take her over 24 hours before she wake up...
You're thinking of movies and TV shows rented directly on the Apple TV. The article is referring to movies and TV shows rented in iTunes, which can now be streamed to the Apple TV. Different situation, and the Apple TV definitely provides no indication that you're looking at a rented item; it just sorts it amongst your normal purchased content.
The only clue that it's a rental is that if you look at your playlists (which have to be specifically enabled in your Apple TV preferences to show up for anything other than music) there will be a "virtual" Smart Playlist labelled "Rentals" that includes all of your rented content. However, the same content also appears everywhere else in the UI with no indication that it's rented, nor any warning when you actually start playing it.
To be fair, it is a bug, just not a loophole that will let you keep watching a rented item. The bug is that iTunes never gets the updated expiry information, and will end up keeping a useless unplayable item cluttering up your library long after it should have expired -- the only way to get rid of it is to delete it manually, which of course requires you figuring out which rented items you've watched and are therefore ready to delete.
That's also a bug. Right now the new Apple TV has more bugs than a bait store in terms of how it interacts with iTunes. You will find, however, that if you stop watching a movie or TV show within the last few minutes (generally around the last 10% of it), it will correctly mark it as watched. I've had to get into the habit of ending my TV shows before they actually get to the end just to work around this annoying bug.
Other fun bugs include the fact that the TV show sorting is completely messed up (even leaving aside the fact that you now get one entry per season), and all playlists now sort alphabetically instead of preserving the sort order from iTunes.
Movies rented on my Mac show up under Computer/My Library on the Apple TV and not in the section you mentioned movies rented directly on the Apple TV show up there.
That's because you rented it directly on the Apple TV. If you rent it on your Mac/PC it doesn't show up there, it only shows up in the 'Computers' section.
Thanks. I realize that now. I'm following through on this by renting in iTunes and then I'll stream it from my new Apple TV and see what happens. If it is like this article states then I'm gonna submit a bug report unless this is being done purposefully by Apple.
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Agreed. What planet do these studio execs live on that they can't recognize that many people don't have the time to watch a movie in one sitting? If I come home and rent a movie and only hve an hour efore I have to go to bed, why shouldn't I be able to pick up where I left off the next night?
Even a 28 hour rental would be a vast improvement over 24.
vassillios said:
Agreed. What planet do these studio execs live on that they can't recognize that many people don't have the time to watch a movie in one sitting? If I come home and rent a movie and only hve an hour efore I have to go to bed, why shouldn't I be able to pick up where I left off the next night?
Even a 28 hour rental would be a vast improvement over 24.
Let the update denying begin. The new update will be a downgrade and nobody will get it
It's like MainMenu and iStat Menus which became shareware in the new "update", only letting you use it for 14 days.
Again another reason to keep the old version and its loophole.
and nobody will get it It's like MainMenu and iStat Menus which became shareware in the new "update", only letting you use it for 14 days.
Again another reason to keep the old version and its loophole.
some shows you might want to watch again. I used to watch Lost the day after (I was on night shift) and then again on the weekend with my boyfriend.
plus consider if you started something like a movie tonight and were interrupted, but you couldn't get home to watch it until 25 hours after you started it, oh well, too bad for you.
A flat 30 day rental with no extra clauses covers both issues pretty nicely
IMHO this is how it should be anyway. Why not? There's no hard copy to return. Why not let you watch a movie or TV show as much as you want for a month. I mean, really what's the big deal? It should just work for 30 days, period. You're still not gonna keep it.
Since Apple is paying full purchase prices to Fox and ABC for these rentals it makes sense.
They don't have to get the cut-off issue sorted out yet. They can do this during the trial because it doesn't make a lot of difference, and the actual existence of it will artificially boost "rentals" during the trial period, making it potentially look more successful than it really is. I assume they will change this at some point before the trial ends.
They don't have to get the cut-off issue sorted out yet. They can do this during the trial because it doesn't make a lot of difference, and the actual existence of it will artificially boost "rentals" during the trial period, making it potentially look more successful than it really is. I assume they will change this at some point before the trial ends.
The 24/48 hour timeout is most probably a licence restriction with Apple's contract with the film studios and so is unlikely to get changed.
It appears from iLounge's note that a patch will be required because Apple TV users cannot currently differentiate between iTunes-streamed rentals and normal content, therefore in theory could unwittingly start the 24/48 hour timer on an unwatched rental only for it to expire before they have actually watched it. This is bad and therefore needs patching ASAP or there are going to be some unhappy customers!
It appears from iLounge's note that a patch will be required because Apple TV users cannot currently differentiate between iTunes-streamed rentals and normal content, therefore in theory could unwittingly start the 24/48 hour timer on an unwatched rental only for it to expire before they have actually watched it. This is bad and therefore needs patching ASAP or there are going to be some unhappy customers!
24/48 hour limits hurt sales
I never understood why they want a 24/48 hour limit. There's a point at which, if you're too greedy, instead of making more money you'll just make none at all.
I travel for work. My other half travels for work. If one of us is out of town the other might be willing to rent a movie -- but we'd like for BOTH of us to watch it. With just about any other rental system, we could keep the movie for a week or longer... enough time for everyone to get a chance to watch it.
With the 24/48 limit, we just WONT rent a movie... at all.
In all the years that I've owned Apple TV, I have _never_ rented a single movie or TV show, and all specifically because of this limit. I feel like I'm being double-dipped because we both have busy work schedules. Why should they care how many times it's played? It's not like they pay for the electricity that powers my TV when I'm watching their movie.
The rental policy fails to recognize that when you rent a movie, you're really renting it to a household... not necessarily to an individual named person. In my opinion, they should update this policy to give consumers more flexibility. Either (a) allow unlimited viewings for about a week, or (b) allow limited number of viewings (e.g. 3) but give consumers the full 30 days.
I never understood why they want a 24/48 hour limit. There's a point at which, if you're too greedy, instead of making more money you'll just make none at all.
I travel for work. My other half travels for work. If one of us is out of town the other might be willing to rent a movie -- but we'd like for BOTH of us to watch it. With just about any other rental system, we could keep the movie for a week or longer... enough time for everyone to get a chance to watch it.
With the 24/48 limit, we just WONT rent a movie... at all.
In all the years that I've owned Apple TV, I have _never_ rented a single movie or TV show, and all specifically because of this limit. I feel like I'm being double-dipped because we both have busy work schedules. Why should they care how many times it's played? It's not like they pay for the electricity that powers my TV when I'm watching their movie.
The rental policy fails to recognize that when you rent a movie, you're really renting it to a household... not necessarily to an individual named person. In my opinion, they should update this policy to give consumers more flexibility. Either (a) allow unlimited viewings for about a week, or (b) allow limited number of viewings (e.g. 3) but give consumers the full 30 days.
