AAARGH! Apple TV is rubbish!

[trip1ex]

Regarding the OP's setup: streaming from an airport external disk doesn't sound ideal. With computers, you want to keep in the "mainstream" sort of speak at least in my experience. You don't want to do these odd-man out setups unless you want headaches and hassles and maintenance.

I would ditch that setup. GEt a bigger drive for your MBP if you need it.

And check your wireless setup. N-only is better. 5ghz N-only is probably better yet.

Power cycle your ATV like others said to see if that helps.

Test with ethernet to eliminate wireless as a culprit. Wireless can be flakey which might account for the flakey problems some have with the ATV.

 

[chatin]

Apple TV rocks!

Can't say enough good things about my TV. As someone who has dropped cable to focus on the important things in life, this little device is great for watching podcasts, surfing Youtube and checking out the latest HD trailers.

 

[mstrze]

My Extreme is already locked into two disctinct channels - "Extreme" and "Extreme 5GHz". Which piece of hardware should join which channel? No combination I've tried has offered any solution.

You are confusing what 'we' mean by channels. You are assuming your named networks are 'channels'. Go into your Airport Setup Utility and you will see an area where you can choose which channel the AEBS broadcasts on. The suggestion was if this was set currently on 'Automatic' to choose an other channel. Or, try a different channel than the number you currently see. As others have suggested, you likely have a neighbor who is causing interference on the channel you are using currently.

I think others have also answered your question, but I will throw it out there too that both MB and the ATV should be on the same 'network', preferrably the "Extreme 5GHz" one as the 5GHz network is the one with less interference.

 

[HOMBRESINIESTRO]

I fully agree. Apple TV is really a bad product. It should never have passed quality control. Moreover, I assume that Apple has given up on their former "hobby". My guess is that they are selling Apple TVs as long as there are enough people buying it and then it will be faded out.

I encounter frequent crashes, hangs and blinking question marks, the box gets much too hot, it cannot be turned off, it changes the interface every year (currently arriving at where Sony has been for a long time now). The feature set is great, but it has to work. Apple should take this serious or drop it. Probably Mr. Jobs thinks the future is completely mobile and stationary TV sets don't occur in his vision.

 

[jaw04005]

You are confusing what 'we' mean by channels. You are assuming your named networks are 'channels'. Go into your Airport Setup Utility and you will see an area where you can choose which channel the AEBS broadcasts on. The suggestion was if this was set currently on 'Automatic' to choose an other channel. Or, try a different channel than the number you currently see. As others have suggested, you likely have a neighbor who is causing interference on the channel you are using currently.

I think others have also answered your question, but I will throw it out there too that both MB and the ATV should be on the same 'network', preferrably the "Extreme 5GHz" one as the 5GHz network is the one with less interference.

Don’t even bother. Considering the OP modified his/her thread topic this morning to add “so *****,” it’s obvious this was nothing but a rant thread.

 

[rayward]

Secondly, I hear what you're saying about streaming, but are you suggesting that, after several months, I go back to the Apple Store and demand my money back? I was sold this kit for the purpose of streaming. If it wasn't desinged to run off a Network Share then why has it done so - flawlessly - for the last couple of months?

FWIW, this kind of trouble is always network or host-related. As stated above the "this file cannot be played" error message is a generic and misleading statement, which means that either the ATV has lost its link to iTunes, or that iTunes has lost its link to the library.

I have my library stored on a NAS, and if I start iTunes before the NAS has mounted to my Mac (usually after a restart, which I imagine you do quite frequently on a MBP), iTunes reverts to the local library location, which is empty, and ATV gives me the generic brush off.

IMHO, the ATV is not your problem. Make sure that your library is available to your MBP before you start iTunes, and your ATV will be fine.

 

[dynaflash]

Granted, I am using a 1 TB eSata modded atv that has everything synced, but I am amazed at how smooth everything runs when the network (not the atv's fault) is taken out of the equation.

 

[Wild-Bill]

No problems here

I haven't really experienced any problems with my 40 gig ATV. Since it's such a small drive and since I have tons of space on my Mac Pro, I just stream my iTunes library to the ATV. The ATV is on a 5GHz N-Only wireless network, and streams content from the Mac Pro just fine. Every now and then, if I have the ATV on and then open my Macbook Air, the Macbook Air can't see my wireless network. But if I have the MBA opened and connected first, then fire up the ATV, the ATV has no problem connecting to the network. Weird.
But, 9 times out of 10 I don't have my MBA and ATV on at the same time.

One of these days I'll get around to hacking it and seeing how Boxee and the like perform. It'd be nice to not have to convert avi's to MP4 for the ATV to read.

 

[MacLovin78]

Has anyone considered reading into the post more? As I read the post it appears to me that the user may have rented a movie from the iTunes store. It was Valentine's Day and a romantic comedy. It seems entirely possible to me that there could be others out there doing the exact same thing and that if you have many many users that are trying to rent the same romantic comedy on valentine's day that the apple servers got bogged down to the point that they couldn't upload fast enough?

I often experience more problems when streaming a TV show on a major network website etc. if it is the day it is released. I wait two days and voila no streaming issues.

Also, could be network bandwidth from the ISP if it was a rented movie being downloaded.

I'm not saying that all the other factors aren't possible, but lets look to the most obvious simple explanation given it was possibly a rented romantic comedy on Valentine's Day.

 

[JoshBoy]

I would do the following:

1. Take the USB hard drive off the AirPort Extreme. It wasn’t designed to host your iTunes library and iTunes is not designed to run off a network share.

2. Change the AirPort Extreme’s channel selection to a permanent channel and take it off automatic. If it’s already on a permanent channel, change the channel.


4. Unpair the Apple TV from iTunes. Restart your Mac. Then, re-setup the Apple TV within iTunes.

First of all I run a massive itunes library off an external HDD that is connected to my APE. Works great and I would love to know who said itunes was not designed this way considering it allows this to happen plus there is apple support material specific to this set up.

In relation to the channel you are correct, a new microwave or applicance either from you or a neighbour can cause problems, i had the same issue.

If all else fails restart. I must say however I eventually chose to run ethernet cables from my appleTV and PS3 tgo the APE because it is more reliable than wireless.

 

[jaw04005]

First of all I run a massive itunes library off an external HDD that is connected to my APE. Works great and I would love to know who said itunes was not designed this way considering it allows this to happen plus there is apple support material specific to this set up.

Post a link to the Apple documentation that says just that. You can’t because it doesn’t exist.

Apple doesn’t even officially support performing Time Machine backups off an AirDisk connected to an AirPort Extreme.

iTunes was designed as a client program. It wasn’t designed to be launched off a share, period. No matter how bad you want that feature.

Otherwise, Apple would have built an iTunes Server into the AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule so you wouldn’t need to transfer data twice in a setup like the OP has.

 

[jbg232]

To the OP: I have an apple tv and also find that on (high-volume) nights the thing is downright slow. I also had the same experience on V-Day and assumed it was because so many other people were trying to sync movies at the same time. However, you should be using an ethernet cable for better performance (although you will be limited by your internet connection either way as 99% of home internet connections will not match the download rate of a wireless N (or G) connection).

I have to disagree with the other people who hate their apple tv's. Sometimes it is just perfect. Like when you're home in winter and its snowing and you're drinking some hot tea and decide to rent a movie, you don't have to leave the comfort of your home and hot tea to lug out to the freaking video store. I love it! Not to mention it is an awesome media player if set up well initially.