Anything better than itunes to watch video purchases?

[MacBH928]

I am still on Mojave and iTunes is pretty horrible media player. No 10sec skip button, jitters, takes a lot of time to load the videos(Stream), the buttons become unresponsive, and there are button-god knows why- that skips to the next video, like who watches a movie and decide let me just skip to the next one.

 

[Fishrrman]

I don't know about streaming media.

But... if you "have the files in your possession"... such as movies in mp4 format... you could use either IINA or VLC to play them. I use IINA, mostly.

 

[Boyd01]

Are the "video purchases" movies/tv shows that you downloaded from Apple? If so, AFAIK, you must use Apple's software - either iTunes or the Apple TV app (not sure if that is fully implemented on Mojave, it replaces iTunes on Catalina).

Video purchases from Apple are copy-protected and will not play in other software. If someone else knows a way to do this (aside from some hack to remove the copy protection), I would be interested to learn of it.

 

[MacBH928]

I don't know about streaming media.

But... if you "have the files in your possession"... such as movies in mp4 format... you could use either IINA or VLC to play them. I use IINA, mostly.

yes I downloaded them but its copyright protected, can't be viewed else where

 

[Longkeg]

You don’t specify if you just want to watch on your computer or stream to an AppleTV or some other box. Other than what OS you’re running you’ve told us nothing about your set up. Are you streaming to a TV or watching on your computer? It makes a difference with more options on the streaming side than there may be for Mac OS. But…

If the files are DRM protected your options are limited to Apple’s software. There are third party apps out there (unsurprisingly they are not offered on the Mac App Store) that can strip the DRM from your files. It’s time consuming and morally questionable to do this however.

Why are you still on Mojave? An update, either OS or a newer Mac or both might help.

 

[MacBH928]

You don’t specify if you just want to watch on your computer or stream to an AppleTV or some other box. Other than what OS you’re running you’ve told us nothing about your set up. Are you streaming to a TV or watching on your computer? It makes a difference with more options on the streaming side than there may be for Mac OS. But…

If the files are DRM protected your options are limited to Apple’s software. There are third party apps out there (unsurprisingly they are not offered on the Mac App Store) that can strip the DRM from your files. It’s time consuming and morally questionable to do this however.

Why are you still on Mojave? An update, either OS or a newer Mac or both might help.

Well I specifically said iTunes which is a MacOS only app so I am trying to watch on MacOS.

I am still on Mojave because Catalina sucks as people seem to imply, Big Sur has issues and Monterey is still not out yet and I think I will lose 32-bit apps or something like that.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Based on your problem description, I’d say the problem is bandwidth — not absolutely your overall Internet access speed but it could be some latency with your connection and Apple’s servers.

No 10sec skip button, jitters, takes a lot of time to load the videos(Stream)

I haven’t used iTunes in awhile, although, I did find this — hopefully, it’s at least somewhat helpful:

How can You Watch iTunes Purchased Movies Offline? - Audcope

There are two way for you to watch purchased iTunes movies offline on Apple devices and other media players with easy steps.

www.audcope.com

 

[Fishrrman]

OP wrote:
"I think I will lose 32-bit apps or something like that."

YES.
Mojave is "the last version of the OS" on which you can still run 32-bit software.
This is important to some folks, including myself.
So before you "move beyond" Mojave, BE SURE that the apps you want to use are 64 bit.
(also be aware of something called "Retroactive", which lets you use old Mac apps including iTunes, iPhoto, Aperture on the newer Mac and OS versions)

It looks like MacCheetah provides some useful info in reply 7 above...