How long will a purchased movie stay downloaded on Apple TV 2?

[Jman13]

I've had my Apple TV for quite a while now, and it's used predominantly for Netflix, (and now Hulu plus) with the occasional rental from iTunes. I don't stream movies from my PC any more because Home Sharing has been very flaky for me (80%of the time it can't see my computer).

Anyway, yesterday I bought a movie for my daughter through the ATV, and watched it yesterday. This morning, my daughter wanted to watch it again, and we went to play and I was happily surprised to see it didn't have to redownload the movie. I know the ATV has storage to cache films after download, but it was my understanding that it doesn't keep the movies on the device for any length of time.

Will this stay downloaded for a specific length of time, or will it stay until the next movie I rent? Just curious how it manages the storage.

 

[pavelbure]

Probably stays until it needs the room. I know Ive gone a day or so and movies will still be on.

 

[26139]

For me...

For me, it stays for 24 hours after I start playing the movie, 30 days after I download it as long as I haven't started to watch it.

Once it's "ready to watch", I don't have to download anything again, so it must keep enough cached to be able to keep up.