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Your Apple TV is not authorised to play this content...

Authorising an ATV

I have just purchased an ATV and it is showing the same fault as others have described over a lengthy period, that is it describes itself as 'not authorised' and therefore will not play purchased or streamed purchased material. Apple Support was hopeless. Surely they should have guidance available by now!

I realise there is no way to 'authorise' the ATV through its menus. It must derive its authorisation from the linked computer. I will try deauthorising and reauthorising the linked Air and see what happens.

If that fails I'm sending it backl to John Lewis for a replacement.

I note most of the postings are over a year old. Does this mean Apple have cracked it (but not with mine!)?

Any advice out there?
 
Hi

Just been reading this fascinating thread as i intend purchasing an :apple:tv soon.

The thread has thrown up a question for me and I apologise if I'm being stupid.

I have two iTunes store accounts on my MBP, and purchased content has been from a mix of the two accounts (a UK acc and a USA acc).

When it comes to playback on my MBP this has never posed a problem or been an issue of any kind.

Having read this thread I'm getting the distinct impression that I will have problems with an :apple:tv as the implication in most of the threads is purchased content will only work if 'logged in' via an iTunes acc - so I'm guessing this may mean that if I'm 'logged in ' on my US acc then UK acc material won't play and vice-versa?

Am I understanding this correctly? and is there a known work around other than logging into and out of each account depending on what I want to watch?

Again apologies if I'm being a bit thick here.

Kind regards
Mark
 
I've personally never read about someone having two accounts before with the device, so I could not say whether one will play but not the other, but it stands to reason that might very well be the case if the movie files are registered under two different accounts as it would "see" that as a different person as the owner of the file. You indicate that you have had no problems viewing both from your MBP, though, so perhaps it wouldn't be a problem here either? In any case, you can, of course, change your login at any time from within the Apple TV interface. So, if nothing else, if you needed to view a movie purchased with the other account, you could log into it. But that implies iTunes has that content available (for streaming). If stored locally, it might behave differently (I do not store any content locally on my units except photos, but serve everything else from a single house server).

Of course, this would only be an issue for movies purchased from iTunes. Songs are all now DRM free and shouldn't be an issue unless you have a large library of non-updated music. Most of my movies are conversions from my own DVD collection and therefore have no DRM on them and so they wouldn't be an issue either. If you're just renting movies, just log into the account you wish to rent from and it won't be a big deal. You could create playlists for the US and UK accounts so it's easier to recognize which content is which, if indeed you did have to login the other account to view it. But I'm not sure anyone who doesn't already have this same situation will be able to answer your question for certain. You might just need to try it. If you bought your unit from a place like Best Buy, you could always take it back within a certain number of days if you are unhappy with it.
 
I too had this message of the Apple Tv not authorized to play this content.
But I found the solution!

The problem apparently only surfaces when the apple TV is not always connected to the internet.
When I am at home my apple TV is wirelessly connected via my router to the internet and thus itunes.
However when I am on a ship the construction is far more complicated.

I only have a wireless internet connection via my MBP and this is a very expensive and thus as short as possible connection. (It is also far too slow to download any content)

My apple TV is connected via an ethernet cable to my MBP and the MBP is connected via airport with the internet.

What I did was loaded all the content on the apple TV via the sync button in iTunes. (just as you would do normally).

Once that was done (can take hours in case one downloads GB's and movies) I connected to the internet and then to the iTunes store.
Once that connection was made, I sync'ed the apple TV again and at that moment the Apple TV authorizes all content!
(it is a rather short sync but there is certainly traffic)

After that you can disconnect the internet and disconnect the apple TV and then the apple TV can play all content, including all movies including rental movies!!!
As with the question about the 2 (or more) iTunes accounts (I have more then one myself), that is not a problem as long as you sync for authorization in both accounts!

It really works and is actually very simple!
Good luck.
 
ATV - Does Not Recognize Apple ID In iTunes

Hi,

I purchased my first 40 GB ATV off e-bay. It seems everything is working and I can even preview the movies off iTunes. However, to my dismay, I cannot rent any movies due to iTunes not recognizing Apple ID which I have been using directly off my Apple Laptop with no issues.

Does this problem have a finally a solution?

Thx,
Paul
 
Paul Frechette said:
Hi,

I purchased my first 40 GB ATV off e-bay. It seems everything is working and I can even preview the movies off iTunes. However, to my dismay, I cannot rent any movies due to iTunes not recognizing Apple ID which I have been using directly off my Apple Laptop with no issues.

Does this problem have a finally a solution?

Thx,
Paul
Click to expand...

For me, it was getting someone at an Apple store (I'm sure they could do it over the phone just as easily) to RE-REGISTER my AppleTV (and ID I assume) all over again. Once THEY did it (for just one), BOTH my AppleTV units worked fine and have had no problems ever since. I cannot explain why my ID that worked fine for my Mac didn't register for AppleTV use, but that is what ultimately fixed the problem for me (and it did not involve any need to access my AppleTV, just for them to fix it in their database).
 
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