1080p iTunes movies not opening

Thanks for getting in touch. I'm sorry you having trouble streaming your media after using TuneSpan.

When you are trying to stream from iTunes to your iPad or iPod, are you getting an error message or anything? I have not personally encountered this issue, so it would help to have a bit more information.

Before getting too in-depth, have you tried all the simple stuff? Make sure your external drive is plugged in and mounted before launching iTunes? Restart your computer, iPad, iPhone?

About Apple TVs, I don't personally have an Apple TV (or 2), so I can't really speak to that. I imagine if you could stream to 2 Apple TVs before spanning, than it should be possible. But, if you couldn't do that before, spanning would not allow you to do so.

Hi. "Cannot Open" message comes up. I have restarted mac and checked drive. It streams fine to Apple TV, just not to iPhone or iPad, which it did prior to Tunespan installation.

Alright, thanks you for getting back to me.

I will look into this further on my end and get back to you if I can figure anything out.

Again, I'm sorry your experiencing this issue after spanning your media.

I've been busy, but looked into this a bit more.

And, I can confirm that I am experiencing the same issue when streaming 1080p videos to my iPad after spanning them, but 720p and SD ones seem to work fine.

I'm sorry about this, I have never noticed this issue before as I had not streamed 1080p videos to my iPad before.

I need to dig a bit deeper to figure out if this is cause by TuneSpan directly, or of this is just what happens when a 1080p video is not in the default media location.

I will try to take some time today to do some more tests with this video file to figure out if it is just a behavior of iTunes and the Music app on the iPad, or if TuneSpan is directly causing it.

But, if TuneSpan is not directly causing it and it's just a behavior of iTunes and the iPads streaming when a file is not in the default media location (which could also be done without using TuneSpan). Then, I am not sure that I will be able to do anything it about it.

To test this, I will remove a 1080p video from my library and re-add it from a different external drive without it being copied to the default media location. If the same "Cannot Open" message comes up, then this is not directly caused by TuneSpan. But, we will find out if that's what happens.

It may just be an unfortunate side affect of having 1080p videos outside of the default media location. I hope this is not the case, but I will let you know that I find.

Again, I'm sorry about this and that I was previously unaware of this issue. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

great.. eagerly awaiting good news.. it really doesnt help spanning if you cant access your 1080p content.

So sorry it has taken me a while. I still haven't had time to dig into this and try to figure out the root cause of why iTunes/iPad is not allowing this video to be played... Whether or not is has anything to do with TuneSpan, etc.

But, I hope to find the time to sit down today and look into it. Again, I'm sorry for the delay.

Alright, I didn't get the time to look into this yesterday, I'm sorry. But now, I am finally sitting down and am going to look into this issue. I will get back to you with what I find. Again, I'm so sorry this has taken me a while to get around to.

I think I've figured this out. It was a bit confusing so it took me a minute to realize what was going on.

I have an iPad 2. I could stream a short film that I had that was in both SD and 1080p HD quality when it was in my default iTunes Media location. Then I would span it (just the 1080p version because that was the default playback version in iTunes... because of how iTunes writes its readable XML library file, TuneSpan can only span one video quality version at a time, which I will talk more about later), and then I would try to stream it and would get the "Cannot Open" error.

So... I removed the video from iTunes (the SD and 1080p HD versions) and then re-added JUST the 1080p HD version from my external drive to iTunes, without it being copied into the default iTunes media location. Now, my 1080p video was in iTunes, but would not show up on my iPad's Videos app to stream at all. I was confused. It took me a while to realize, but finally I found that I was never actually streaming the 1080p version to my iPad 2, it was always reverting to the SD version. This is because 1080p playback is only supported on the new iPad (iPad 3, or whatever). Which version of the iPad do you have? If it is not the latest version, that is the issue. I found some info about this at the bottom of this page: http://www.apple.com/itunes/inside-it...

So, the issue is that the 1080p version has been spanned and is in one location, and the SD version was not spanned and is still in your default media location. When the iPad tried to play the video, I believe it is looking for the SD version to be in the same location with the 1080p version, but cannot find it. It can't revert to the SD version easily like it was before. So, we just need to span the SD version to the same location as the 1080p HD version to allow the iPad to easily find and fall back to that SD version.

So, it's working for me now. I can stream the video on my iPad 2 from the spanned location, but it is still just falling back to the SD version to play. Also, after spanning stuff which made changes to the iTunes Library, it was necessary to quit iTunes, close the Movies app and relaunch it all and reconnect to my iTunes Library so that the Movies app on the iPad would have the latest info, if I didn't do that I would get different errors because it had not updated with the latest file locations.

But also, now I'm a bit more confused because the videos are playing fine no matter what. I cannot get that "Cannot Open" video even if the 1080p HD version is spanned and the SD version is not... weird.

Anyway, I will include the instructions on spanned the SD versions as well in a comment to this post, and you let me know how it works out for you.

Here is the info from the description on the Mac App Store about some things not being able to be spanned and the issue with HD and SD videos:

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IS THERE ANYTHING TUNESPAN CAN'T SPAN?

Unfortunately, TuneSpan can't span files that aren't included in the readable XML iTunes Library file. TuneSpan has no access to the following files; they are left untouched and unchanged:

Mobile Apps, Rented Movies, Ring Tones, Text-Based Books, iTunes LPs, and iTunes Extras

Also, for SD and HD versions of a video, only one at a time can be spanned (the one that's currently selected in iTunes).

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This is pasted from another email reply I have made for simplicity:

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To span the SD versions, you need to change the set version for each video track in iTunes. You can right click each track to switch versions individually, or simply switch the default version for all tracks from within the iTunes Preferences. Whichever version is set in iTunes is the one that will be listed in the XML file, and TuneSpan should handle this change gracefully, updating the location to the SD version, but not losing the HD one when you switch back in iTunes.

To switch the default video version for all videos, open the iTunes Preferences (command+,) and go to the "Playback" pane. There is a "Preferred Video Version" option drop down menu, select the "Standard Definition" option.

Then, quit iTunes to save the updated iTunes Library and reload or relaunch TuneSpan to load the updated library.

Now, the SD versions will be the listed locations in TuneSpan, and TuneSpan should have changed those tracks to being manually Restored.

You will need to reselect those files for spanning, and span them to the same span location as you did the HD versions to get them where they should be with the other version.

Once that is complete, you can switch the default version back to High Definition for viewing, and if you ever choose to span them to a new location, or restore them, you will need switch versions again and do the same thing.

I know this is not ideal, but it is the best that I have found that can be done with the limitations that are imposed by what is listed in the iTunes XML library files and how it handles the two separate versions.

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Please let me know if that works out for you, like I said I'm a bit confused that I can't get that same "Cannot Open" message like I was before. Anyway, I hope this solves the issue. Also, please let me know what version iPad you are using, if it is a "new iPad/iPad 3" you should be able to play the full 1080p, otherwise it should always be playing the SD version.

Also, confirmed that I can stream (SD versions of) videos correctly on my iPhone 4 when both the 1080p HD and SD versions are spanned to the same location.

i have iPad 3 and iPhone 4S. Does 4S not stream in 1080p? i dont have problem with 720p or SD. i have spanned all my movies which include SD, 720p and 1080P. If I set to play SD as per your instructions will I have to change this everytime I want to watch 1080p?

I'm really not sure about the streaming settings or capabilities of them. I can't really find something saying specifically if they can stream 1080p, but I know my iPad 2 and iPhone 4 do not seeming to be streaming full 1080p.

I'm sorry I can't say. But, after you've spanned all versions, are you still getting the "Cannot Open" error for your 1080p videos?

If you change the default video version setting in iTunes, you need to have it on 1080p when you want to view 1080p in iTunes, and will need to switch between each version when you want to span each one.

So, if the 1080p videos are still not streaming properly on your devices, I'm really not sure what to say at this point. I'm sorry if that's the case, I guess you need to switch versions for streaming. I will be getting the next iPhone version to test with, but I will not have the latest iPad to test personally. So, again, I'm sorry I can't let you know more about streaming on these specific products, but I will let you know if and when I find anymore information out.