Streaming itunes DRM movies to safari on iPad not working - IOS 8 issue?

WD External Drives My Passport Wireless
1

Previously I’ve been able to stream my DRM itunes movies to my account authorised ipad via the cloud app (from my My cloud server) via the safari browser. Today, I tried to do the same with the passport wireless and it failed to work - it still transfers the stream from the app to safari but refuses to play the video. 

Has anyone else seen this / can confirm this is the case?

I subsequently tried My Cloud NAS and other competitior products I own and it appears to be across the board. I’ve been looking all over the net for answers to this but have now come to the conclusion is an apple / IOS8 issue. If its a bug in ios 8 its annoying… if its by design on apple’s part its a real nasty decision - I can only assume they didn’t like people accessing their purchased content using devices such as the wireless plus.

Scott

1 Like
2

It’s one of Apple’s many nasty tricks and why there is no DRM encrusted media on any of my devices, starting with my first iPod.  I did download very few music files from Apple at one time because there was no other legit place to find it.  My solution to remove the DRM was to use iTunes to burn album to CD – that eliminated DRM, and then to create an mp3 from the burned album.  The mp3 files play fine on iPod and elsewhere.  I also used eraseable CDs for this purpose so as not to waste CDs.

I wonder if this sort of procedure would work for movie files?  For my movies, I, along with many other people, learned how to extract them from my DVDs into mp4 and mkv files so I could watch them via my WDTV, phones and tablets.

BTW, the My Cloud app is my preferred way to watch movies from MPW, because it is a very robust video player.  There are other apps I can use, too.  I would never use Safari; I prefer a video app.

1 Like
3

Having the same problem playing TV shows bought in the iTunes store, I used to be able to open them from MyCloud app and they would open and play in Safari. I am really crossing my fingers this is just a bug and not by design.

4

nicols wrote:

Previously I’ve been able to stream my DRM itunes movies to my account authorised ipad via the cloud app (from my My cloud server) via the safari browser. Today, I tried to do the same with the passport wireless and it failed to work - it still transfers the stream from the app to safari but refuses to play the video. 

 

Has anyone else seen this / can confirm this is the case?

 

I subsequently tried My Cloud NAS and other competitior products I own and it appears to be across the board. I’ve been looking all over the net for answers to this but have now come to the conclusion is an apple / IOS8 issue. If its a bug in ios 8 its annoying… if its by design on apple’s part its a real nasty decision - I can only assume they didn’t like people accessing their purchased content using devices such as the wireless plus.

 

Scott

Hello,

We have passed this along to support.

Thanks,

5

I have the same problem with any of the videos that I previously had in ITUNES (m4v).  All of these video’s played fine on a number of devices before I upgraded them to IOS 8.0.2, and now none of them play properly.  Safari switches as though it is going to play the video, and then never does.   If you click “Play” the screen just hangs.

Anyone else seeing this?  Is this the same problem described above?

Thanks!

6

NOT allowed on any of my drives or devices, and if it so happens a file has it, it gets removed!

no DRM.jpg

7

Yeah I hope they fix this. I bought a my passport wireless thinking it would be perfect to bring all my movies and tv shows and music without filling my iPhone up. lol looks like I’ll have to return it.

8

Maybe you ought to be patient and wait until Apple fixes this problem.  You see, the Seagate wireless drive owners are experiencing the same issue.

9

Actually, this is not something we can NOT fix.  It appears that Apple finally fixed an issue they had with their movie DRMs.  The files should have never played in the first place.

[Edit]

If you have an issue with this, you will need to take it up with Apple.

10

Bill, thanks for sharing this news – as bad as it is for the folks who have watched their iTunes movies from their wireless drives on airplanes and for the kids in the backseat.  I don’t believe for a minute that Apple “fixed” anything – what they did was they now have “rigged it” so it just doesn’t play video anymore streamed from external drives (made by anyone); wireless or otherwise.

Just this past week I helped a user at the Seagate forum who, for the first week after she got her wireless drive it all worked fine, and two weeks later when she got a new iPad Air 2, it didn’t work.  I had to let her know it wasn’t the fault of the devices being defective, but rather this new DRM content issue surrounding iOS 8.  She wasn’t pleased to learn this and even contacted Apple and wrote back in the forum afterward:

“I talked with 3 folks at Apple today (i.e., 3 levels, as it was escalated up the line). They were adamant it is a third party vendor issue; however, I absolutely believe what you say about copy protection/Apple issue because it just makes sense in regard to the drive functioning one day and not the next and the changes were (1) Apple hardware (2) Apple software (also I can see and play the files on the W+ from within iTunes so I know the drive is functioning and the files are not corrupt). Apple just tried to pass the buck - appreciate your insight . . .”

So folks, you can contact Apple as Bill suggests, but it appears that Apple is not listening nor 'fessing up to what they have done.

11

The folk at stratospherix (FileBrowser) believe it is a bug.

http://www.stratospherix.com/products/filebrowser/support/faq.php

12

Intresting, I didn’t know it ever did play DRM, mostly as I never tested/needed it to. Looks good for those who wants it to :slight_smile:

13

It does not look good – WD apparently got the word from Apple that they “fixed” the bug of it working as it used to. I would be surprised if it ever works like this again.

14

Doh… :frowning:

15

mike27oct wrote:

It does not look good – WD apparently got the word from Apple that they “fixed” the bug of it working as it used to. I would be surprised if it ever works like this again.

Sorry but I don’t believe that Apple would deliberately break this functionality. To do so would restrict the use of DRM videos so much as to make it impractical. iDevices simply don’t have enough capacity to carry around a collection of high quality movies or videos. Copying (or downloading) DRM media to an iDevice for use in the short term is a large inconvenience for users, even if they are willing to use iTunes. There isn’t any simple file copy capability in iOS. It all has to be done in Apps.

Yes, you can stream from the Cloud to an iOS device using the iOS videos App. But the Cloud isn’t always available, certainly outside certain countries, and not in remote areas, or on aircraft, or travelling on a road trip in many cases. Not to forget that every time you stream the video from the Cloud, you are paying for data usage. That can be VERY expensive in certain locations and countries.

Streaming DRM media from large wireless hard or flash drives was and is the obvious solution.

Besides, the objective of DRM is to protect copyright media. DRM media streamed over either a wireless or wired network to an iDevice still has DRM intact until an approved player on the iDevice plays it. So there is no break in the digital path that exposes a DRM free version of the media to be saved along the way. If Apple have decided to use DRM to force people to use their technologies exclusively they may find that the content owners have something to say about that.

No, more likely their DRM regime has become so complex that when they tried to tweak something in iOS 8, they broke it, and now they are struggling to fix it.

If it is true, where is the official WD statement of the Apple communication?

The folk at AirStash also believe it is a bug.

http://support.airstash.com/entries/55924774-Known-Issues-with-iOS-8-and-or-iPhone-6-6-

Mind you, Apple have made no comment over here:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6594013?start=0&tstart=0

16

While I hope you’re right, I wouldn’t put it past Apple to protect their revenue stream in that way…  After all, that’s why they charge up to 10 times the market rate for more memory and prohibit the use of cheap-o SD cards (unlike 95% of android devices.)   16 gb SD card= $9.  Apple uplift for 16gb of memory:  $100.   (The math breaks on the iPhone 6 and new iPads, but you get the point…)

Now Apple has us over the barrel either way.

17

Once again, Tony hits the nail on the head.  Apple does not give a rip about us – they care about their bottom line only.  Fortunately, Apple stock is a member of the S&P 500, so I own my fair share of Apple, and when they win, I win.

Also, there was an “announcement” from WD – did anyone read Bill’s original comments of late last week?  Bill also told me in a private message when I later asked about this: 

“I was told that this affects playing Apple drm managed videos from all shares on all nas devices, not just ours.  The original ability to play those videos was actually a bug in Apple’s drm software.  They just fixed it.”

The party is over!  Time to learn how to turn your DVDs into non-DRM mp4 files for use on the iDevices if you have not done so already.

18

TonyPh12345 wrote:

While I hope you’re right, I wouldn’t put it past Apple to protect their revenue stream in that way…  

Now Apple has us over the barrel either way. 

mike27oct wrote:

Once again, Tony hits the nail on the head.  Apple does not give a rip about us –

I agree that Apple is likely to deliberately do something like this. However I’m hoping that the backlash from existing purchasers of DRM media, and the content owners who will likely see a significant drop off in sales, prompts Apple to come to their senses and either fix the bug they introduced but won’t admit to, or reverses the changes they cynically introduced.

I only have one DRM movie, and I only have that one because I was forced into a position of buying it through iTunes due to it being a niche documentary, ridiculous prices for DVD, very limited availability here in Australia, and a short time line to get a copy. I hate that I had to install iTunes on my HTPC just to play this one program. I wish I could have waited the three weeks or so to receive shipment of a DVD, but I couldn’t.

I hope this move shoots Apple DRM in the foot. If they removed DRM from movies and other video I would buy more via iTunes . . . reluctantly.

19

Here’s a comment I just received from the user at Seagate I had been helping with this issue last week:

Thanks for the follow-up Mike. Obviously not what I wanted to hear - neither is it what Apple told me the other day (claimed this “problem” would be fixed in future release of iOS 8). This latest information does make sense of something that happened after my initial contact with you last week. I had only traded in one of our two iPad Airs when I first contacted Seagate early last week. On Friday before trading the other one in, I was not able to play videos on it even though it still had iOS 7.X. I was baffled because this iPad had been able to play videos from Seagate wireless since October 12th - but wasn’t now and it hadn’t been upgraded to iOS 8. Hmmmmm. What had changed, however, was that I had, by that time, removed the videos that I had installed on the drive around October 12 and set up the drive with different videos from iTunes last week when I was troubleshooting why things weren’t playing. To me, this would seem consistent with a DRM change. Not good news for either of us. Hopefully Apple will change their position but we both know that’s not likely to happen. Thanks again for all your assistance in this matter.

---------------------------------------------------------

These comments lead me to believe that Apple has been busily tweaking their existing videos DRM to not even work with earlier iOS versions; not just v8.

20

Let’s hope some mainstream media (news outlets I mean) get a hold of this and run a damning story on Apple.

They deserve it if this has been deliberate.