iPad not synching iTunes movie rentals

February 9, 2011 9:34 PM

iPad/iTunes help needed--rental movie not transferring to iPad and I'm leaving on a jet plane in just a few hours. Please help avoid an entertainment meltdown!

I rented a few movies on iTunes, downloaded to my laptop on network A (not sure if that's relevant). I got home and synched iPad to laptop on my home WiFi network (needs network authentication to move a rental) and it fails with a message "Transfer of movie failed because already transferred/associated with another device".

But the only device connected to my laptop since I downloaded the movies is the iPad.

What's going on? Please help ensure I have curated entertainment on my flight tomorrow or I might just cry.

posted by donovan to Technology (4 answers total)

If time is an issue, you can just rerent the movie directly on the iPad. You will spend extra, yes... but on the other hand, if it's already on the iPad, it's already on the iPad...
posted by antgly at 9:56 PM on February 9, 2011

This is sort of a dumb guess but are you sure the movie isn't just showing up in your movies application and not in the itunes application of your iPad, and that's why you're getting this error message? I recall a recent question that was similar but not exactly the same. Macworld says that this may be complicated

Rentals don’t work like other items you purchase; you can’t sync them to a portable device. To put a rental on a device like an iPod or iPad, you have to move it, which removes it from the original device after copying. This transfer has something to do with DRM voodoo to make sure that you don’t rent a movie and put it on different devices, where you might be able to get around the 24-hour viewing window, or allow two people to watch it on different devices. You must also be connected to the Internet to move a movie, and iTunes sends authorization information about your device to its server so you can’t play the movie back on two devices.

So you have to "move" the movie, not sync it. Does that make sense? eHow explains.
posted by jessamyn at 11:18 PM on February 9, 2011

What Jessamyn said. However...
In other words, this "feature" may just not work properly.
posted by Obscure Reference at 4:44 AM on February 10, 2011

Response by poster: Alas, no worky. Jessamyn, I was doing the "transfer" of the rental and that's where it tells me I'm not allowed to because it's already been transferred to another device, which it hasn't. Devices and apps have been rebooted and the damn thing just won't work. Way to make paying legally for content suck, thanks Apple.
posted by donovan at 5:30 AM on February 10, 2011