All content purchased from the iTunes store prior to played fine on the iPod, but subsequent purchases resulted in a black screen “Duh”. An hour and a half later, when this process was complete, I was precisely back where I began.
I then, anticipating the all-purpose answer, “restored” the iPod (where “restore” means “wipe the hard drive and reload from the PC archive”).
I then verified that the recently-downloaded videos which wouldn't play on the iPod indeed played just fine when launched from iTunes under Windows XP, which excludes any kind of download or DRM authorisation problem.
The odd thing is that all videos previously downloaded, including episodes of the two programs I'd just updated, continued to play perfectly-obviously this was something specific to the newly downloaded episodes.Īfter exhausting all of the obvious expedients the folks in the offshore call centre would suggest in order to make their customers go away (resetting the iPod, trying it without the docking connector attached, standing on my head and breathing through my ears whilst pressing the “Play” button with my left little toe), I booted the machine back into Windows XP, whence I verified that all of the software versions involved were current: iTunes 7.6.2, QuickTime 7.4.5, iPod video 1.3. Note that there was never, in the process of downloading, transfer to the iPod, nor in the attempt to play the video on the iPod, any indication of a digital rights management (DRM) or authorisation problem. Later, I tried to play the recently-downloaded videos: nothing doing-in each case, after starting to play the video, the screen went blank and after ten to twenty seconds the program selection menu reappeared. Having done so (along with another episode of a program to which I subscribe), I downloaded them to my fifth-generation video iPod, with the intention of playing them at my convenience after I'd restored my computer to a user-oriented operating system. Yesterday, having purchased a “season pass” for the current season of “ South Park”, I booted my machine into Windows XP in order to download the latest episode. Well, Apple's contempt for their customers doesn't seem to have ended there. Some time ago I wrote of an egregious betrayal of customers on the part of Apple, who disabled, for more than two weeks, sound from video purchased from the iTunes Store for customers attempting to play their purchased content on Windows XP machines. | Reading List: Challenge to Apollo » Tuesday, ApApple/iTunes: One Betrayal Too Many
You can download the new iTunes for Mac and Windows directly, or hit Software Update for the refresh.« The “You know” Report: “Compassion Forum” | Reader Joe Maller suggests that if you change the extension of your ringtone files BACK to '.m4a' from '.m4r' they will sync again and still show up as ringtones, so you might try that. Despite the patches, we're told that iToner 1.0.1, just revised to work with 7.4, continues to work as advertised with 7.4.1. Wheel in the sky, keep on turning.Īpple hasn't listed specific changes between 7.4 and 7.4.1, but initial reports say that the technique for creating your own ringtones simply by changing file extensions, which MacRumors announced earlier today, is now blocked (anyone surprised? Didn't think so). We had only hours to get used to a new version with support for all the iPods coming down the pike, and then in don't-blink-or-you'll-miss-it fashion, 7.4 was gone and 7.4.1 was here. There are apps that age gracefully, staying functional and relevant for months or years with no changes at all (I'm looking at you, TNEF's Enough - 2005 in the house!).