The Transfer of Purchased Content

It seems some would prefer to purchase content from their Apple TV and avoid having it transfer back to itunes.

This is achieved quite simply by having itunes set up as a Secondary** library only, thereby making the Apple tv a standalone device.

Although the TV can be used as a standalone device, it’s primary design function is to be part of a network of devices that allow you to view any or all your content from any number of sources.

The ability to transfer content you have purchased on the Apple tv back to itunes, allows you to share it between other macs/PC’s, ipods, iphones and some other third party hardware as well as allowing you to back up this content. This is achieved by operating a Primary* itunes library. A Primary library has other benefits such as allowing you to turn off or remove your mac/PC while still being able to watch your content on the Apple tv

When space is limited on a mac/PC which holds your Primary* itunes library, it might seem like a good idea if you could stop the transfer of purchased content back to the itunes library. This is not possible and I’m not so sure it’s a good idea anyway. My best advice would be to obtain an external drive to hold some or all of your itunes library.

There is however a workaround should you wish to continue without obtaining the suggested hard drive.

1. 1.Simply allow the transfer to occur since you can’t stop it anyway.
   

2. 2.Sync the content back to the Apple TV from itunes.
   

3. 3.Delete the original content from your mac/PC hard drive.
   

Note: You must delete the original files from the mac/PC directory and not from itunes. The procedure for doing this is described HERE.

* Synced/Paired   ** Streamed/Shared    (See My Nomenclature)