I sent a friend an iPod Touch for Christmas. She can’t get it to play movies. She buys them on iTunes on her computer and can watch them there, but when she trys to play them on the iPod it says “Cannot play movie.”
I’d send her to Apple Tech Support but she’s deployed with the US Army and doesn’t have easy access to their Tech Support. Any ideas?
What generation? Also, are you saying she can’t play ANY video? What happens when she uses the iPod itself to go to itunes and look at previews of these movies or shows? She should try that first, to see if it will play video at all. If it won’t, something is seriously wrong. I got a 3gs 32 gig touch for Xmas myself, and while I haven’t DLed any movies or shows, I have watched some previews on it, and it works just fine.
I know of no reason why this wouldn’t work, assuming there isn’t something wrong with the iTouch.
This is where you need to go:
http://www.apple.com/support/contact/
It’s a latest generation 64GB iPod Touch. Brand new.
Also, are you saying she can’t play ANY video? What happens when she uses the iPod itself to go to itunes and look at previews of these movies or shows? She should try that first, to see if it will play video at all. If it won’t, something is seriously wrong. I got a 3gs 32 gig touch for Xmas myself, and while I haven’t DLed any movies or shows, I have watched some previews on it, and it works just fine.
It’s not currently connected to the Internet. Right now she’s just synching stuff with her PC. I’m not sure she’s technically proficient enough to get WiFi connected on her own. If there’s somewhere on the base with unpassword protected WiFi, will the iPod touch automatically hook to ther Internet on it’s own?
Worst case I’ll try to get her to download a movie trailer from Apple onto her PC and then transfer it over to the iPod and see if that will play.
Thanks for the suggestions Robert.
I have seen that with some movies (e.g., Up), when you buy a movie from the iTMS it actually downloads TWO movies - 1 in HD, for desktop use, and 1 in a lower red format for the iPod/iPhone. Could that be what’s going on here?
That’s what I’m worried about.
This is where you need to go:
Contact - Official Apple Support
The problem is she’s deployed overseas, so I don’t think she can call stateside 1-800 numbers. And taking it to the Genius Bar is definitely out.
It does look like she might be able to e-mail them since it is partly an iTunes store issue (I’m surprised they only support e-mail for iTunes store and Apple Photo Services issues).
I suppose that could be. AIUI she transferred the movie over by simply synching her iPod with her computer’s iTunes. So she’s presumably clicking on whatever shows up on the iPod after the synch. She says that the dialog that comes up when she tries to start the movie simply says “Cannot play movie” and that there’s an Okay button, but no option to get more information.
Unfortunately I don’t have a video-capable iPod to experiment with here, and I’m trying to troubleshoot this over the phone (via a bad overseas phone connection). Which makes it a bit hard to tell exactly what’s going on.
At first I thought it might be DRM related, and that she needed to authorize the iPod, but from what I’ve been able to gather it looks like only computers are authorized, not the iPods that synch with them. I did have her try to run it on her computer, which she says works fine (which makes sense, since that’s where she purchased it).
You actually do need to authorize iPods as well, but iTunes should have taken her through it the first time she synced it. It might be worth doing the “Deauthorize All Devices” function that’s under the Store menu (I think), then reauthorizing her computer and iPod.
Can you do a remote desktop session with her? I bet you’d see the problem right away if you could get a look at her screen.
She should be able to just fine. Most deployments have a room/tent/whatever allowing for local calls within CONUS. It might be via satellite, but it’s probably an available option. You might also try to proxy the call for her, or have her pursue the online chat option when she is able to get online.
In the worst case you could open the ticket for her and arrange for a return.
Do all other apps and synched things work for her? I mean has she tried synching music? Did that work? Can she DL a free video game and try to play it. Maybe we can isolate it a bit.
She’s got the movies up and running. Thanks everyone!
I passed along on the suggestions to test non-DRM movies and free Apps, but had her first Deauthorize and Reauthorize the computer and then restore the iPod to factory settings first, that seemed to get the movies to play.
Nice work sir, don’t thank us, you did all the work!