AppleTV HD download 1% 24 min, 1% 40min, 2% 2hr wtf?

[mtbdudex]

I have a full dedicated HT room in the basement and we usually watch movies there. 130" screen, full 7.1....(HT set-up in my sig).
95% blu-ray (own or rental) for 1080p/lossless audio, 5% via Comcast on demand.

Last night, it was 6:15pm, just done with dinner.
We have 3 relatively young kids; 7, 5, and 3 years old, so we like being done watching movies by 8:30pm latest for the nite time routine thing (brush teeth, short story, etc).
We tried for 1st time to watch to watch a movie in our family room HD set-up via AppleTV instead of the basement HT room.

We pre-viewed a few HD trailers and they came up instantly via AppleTV.
The kids selected the movie "Ice Age: Dawn of Dino" in HD.

Started the download directly in AppleTV, from reading http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-media-receivers/apple-tv-40gb/4505-6739_7-32306442.html and other reviews I expected to be able to watch the HD movie within 5-15 seconds, maybe 1 minute max.

And--if you've got decent broadband bandwidth--the videos start streaming from the Web within seconds (with a slightly longer delay for HD flicks).

I had bad experience
I got HD download 1% 24 min remaining, 1% 40min remaining, then shortly after 2% 2hr remaining....

I actually shutdown both computers to make sure no bandwidth being sucked by them. Still no improvement.
We ended up going into the basement HT and watching via Comcast on demand "Land of the Lost" in HD (as so-so movie, but watchable, language not child appropriate at all). Comcast on demand always cues up and plays instantly btw.

My hardware:
SE Michigan, Comcast cable, I own the 2 month old SB6120 SURFboard®. DOCSIS® 3.0 Cable Modem, 2 month old AirPort Extreme, 1 month old AppleTV. AppleTV connection via 802.11n wireless network (all my other stuff hardwired via cat5e).

I don't know where the download is % wise, went to bed after watching "Land of the Lost" in the basement HT and don't feel like turning everything on and waking kids/wife, I'll check in the morning.

My dog wanted out for his "nightime pee", so I decided to check here to see if others had similar experience.
I read this thread "Can rent and download SD movies, but not HD movies", https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/811417/ ,member "littfam" had similar issue, but his is qwest dsl, I'm Comcast cable.

>>same problem, different services.....common thing is Apple servers??

My computer downloads/uploads for other "stuff" have been very fast, so I am at loss here.

 

[Football Dad]

Slow Download

I have Comcast Ultra broadband service and my Apple TV still does that on occasion for unknown reasons. If you do a hard reboot, (Unplug Apple TV and wait 30 seconds before plugging back in.) it will restart the download at a much higher speed. It is usually is ready to watch in 2 or 3 minutes.

I have never been able to figure out why it arbitrarily gets "stopped up".

 

[mtbdudex]

I have Comcast Ultra broadband service and my Apple TV still does that on occasion for unknown reasons. If you do a hard reboot, (Unplug Apple TV and wait 30 seconds before plugging back in.) it will restart the download at a much higher speed. It is usually is ready to watch in 2 or 3 minutes.

I have never been able to figure out why it arbitrarily gets "stopped up".

Thx for the tip to do a hard reset.
IMO I consider it a definite bug / software issue if you need to un-plug the AppleTV to restart it to get a good connection for download speed.
Seems Apple would send a few test packets to confirm connection speed, and if a re-set was needed (or something else) they'd have the AppleTV software handle it.

Another issue:
So I just turned off everything last night and watched another movie in the basement via Comcast on demand.
Come this morning I turn on the AppleTV and immediately it starts playing the Movie, I had no choice!
(on via Harmony remote, which turns on my HDTV, Onkyo AV, and the Apple TV)
I pressed pause/stop immediately, but now just 23 hrs left.....
Was hoping to use this sometime in near future, not immediately.
Another bug.

 

[Airforcekid]

I had the same problem turned out to be my DNS server comcast slows down torrents and other high bandwith downloads. I switched to google and noticed a great improvement.

 

[wombat888]

I think it can relate to how busy Apple's servers are as well as your bandwidth.

I've had better luck as far as speed when using it:

- through ethernet, not wifi
- on regular nights, not holiday and weekend nights

May be coincidence, but I've done about 15 movie rentals and that's my impression so far.

My worst experience with it was a complete inability to get a rental transaction processed for about 90 minutes on Thanksgiving weekend. This happened while I was basically trying to show the ATV off to my brother and his wife. Not technically an ATV issue, I also couldn't complete transactions using my MacBook - I tried while attemping to figure out what the problem was. We used my brother's Time Warner Cable VOD service instead, which worked like a clock.

 

[mtbdudex]

I think it can relate to how busy Apple's servers are as well as your bandwidth.

I've had better luck as far as speed when using it:

- through ethernet, not wifi
- on regular nights, not holiday and weekend nights

May be coincidence, but I've done about 15 movie rentals and that's my impression so far.

My worst experience with it was a complete inability to get a rental transaction processed for about 90 minutes on Thanksgiving weekend. This happened while I was basically trying to show the ATV off to my brother and his wife. Not technically an ATV issue, I also couldn't complete transactions using my MacBook - I tried while attemping to figure out what the problem was. We used my brother's Time Warner Cable VOD service instead, which worked like a clock.

I've toyed with running Cat5e to there via the basement HT, I have access to network there. However, I get full 5 bars connection on the wifi, so that's not limiting factor I think.

Could have been just too much demand on Apple servers at that specific moment, but that's excuse for Apple to make not you or I as customer.

 

[jeremy.king]

Email customer service (via the link if your email receipt) - they will refund you.

I've had issues twice in the past, once due to authorization issue, and another where it wouldn't download. Both times I was refunded.

With so many points of failure between the Apple TV and Apples CDN, its easy to blame the device, but it could be due to almost anything. I'd suggest trying again to see if you have the same issue.

 

[musicman0725]

I've toyed with running Cat5e to there via the basement HT, I have access to network there. However, I get full 5 bars connection on the wifi, so that's not limiting factor I think.

Could have been just too much demand on Apple servers at that specific moment, but that's excuse for Apple to make not you or I as customer.

I use 802.11n wifi for my AppleTV. This is certainly fast enough for streaming HD content to the AppleTV. I've had the same problem you've described before (we have really fast internet 20Mbps), however, we do almost all of our rentals via the AppleTV. Most of the time we can start watching HD rentals almost instantly, but when this does happen the hard reset usually does the trick.

Since the AppleTV utilizes the internet connection to get content there are many more factors to interfere with bandwidth then a rental from Cable's OnDemand. In addition to a reset of the AppleTV, you may also want to perform a speedtest from your computer just to verify your connection is getting the speeds it should be.

As for the rental starting when turning your system on with the harmony remote...I have the same setup and have always worried about that since occasionally the harmony doesn't properly put the appletv to sleep (i've turned it on to find a purchased movie of mine playing).

Still iTunes has been very good about refunds whenever I've had problems. Last time if I remember, they gave me the rental again as SD, refunded my purchase and gave me free song credits to iTunes (none of which I asked for but certainly a nice resolution). I would definitely recommend logging into your account and reporting a problem with the purchase.

 

[mtbdudex]

Good suggestions on using the "report a problem", I just got my email yesterday and had not thought of that.

I just posted my problem in iTunes, basically copy/paste the above with some small editing.

 

[mtbdudex]

In progress with Apple....

From: R, Mike
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 1:18 PM
To: 'iTunes Store'
Subject: RE: This movie never finished downloading

Brian;

Maybe I did not make my issue clear.

So, I will re-state the events of that evening and next day:

·Summary of issue: The HD movie "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” did eventually download fully, but not in time for us to watch it Friday 1/8 evening.
·
FYI: I did everything from the AppleTV interface, not on my iMac computer/ iTunes
My hardware: I live in Howell Michigan, Comcast cable. I own the 2 month old SB6120 SURFboard®. DOCSIS® 3.0 Cable Modem, 2 month old AirPort Extreme, 1 month old AppleTV. AppleTV connection via 802.11n wireless network (all my other stuff hardwired via cat5e.) All latest Apple software updates.

Details/timeline of what happened:
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]Friday 1/8 around 6:20pm Using AppleTV, we previewed a few HD trailers, and decided on watching "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs” . This is my 1st time renting HD movie via the AppleTV.
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]I selected “rent”, and got HD download 1% 24 min remaining, 1% 40min remaining, then shortly after 2% 2hr remaining, all within 3-4 minutes
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]Suspecting possible bandwidth issue because I had (2) computers “on” and webpage open, I actually shutdown both computers to make sure no bandwidth being sucked by them. Still no improvement. Those are connected cat5e hardwire to my network not wireless.
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]Time was approx 6:45pm. 25-30 minutes wasted, from reading reviews I expected maybe 10-15 seconds for the HD movie to build up a safety buffer and say “ready for viewing”, that never happened.
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]Getting frustrated, I simply shut off all my family room HT components via My Harmony 890 remote. The AppleTV fully shuts off, then a few seconds after the green LED always goes on for whatever background sync/etc it does.
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]We ended up going into the basement HT and watching via Comcast on demand "Land of the Lost" in HD (as so-so movie, but watchable, language not child appropriate at all). Comcast on demand always cues up and plays instantly btw
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]Come Saturday 1/9 morning maybe 8am-ish, I turn on the AppleTV and immediately it starts playing the Movie, I had no choice! (on via Harmony remote, which turns on my HDTV, Onkyo AV, and the Apple TV) I pressed pause/stop immediately, but had just 23 hrs left
[FONT=&quot]o[/FONT]Was hoping to use that HD movie sometime in near future, not immediately. We were forced to watch it Saturday evening 1/9.

What am I looking for?

a)Explanation why the download did not work Friday 1/8 evening?
a.Was the Apple servers overloaded?
b.Does Comcast in Howell Michigan throttle digital downloads, so I can expect this kind of performance if I try and rent from AppleTV in the future?
c.Other?

b)I got advice from some online apple forums to do a “hard reset” of the AppleTV if this happens. Ie, unplug the AppleTV for 30 seconds and plug back in. That is not customer friendly. Comments from your side?

We did watch the HD movie from your AppleTV service as stated above, but were “forced” to rent another movie that nite from different source because it was not working.

Therefore, I’d be a satisfied customer if in addition to answering why the download did not work, Apple would offer us (1) free HD movie rental as good faith gesture.



____________________________________
Mike R P.E.



From: iTunes Store [mailto:iTunesStoreSupport@apple.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 6:53 AM
To: R, Mike
Subject: Re: This movie never finished downloading

Dear Mike,

I'm sorry to hear that "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" did not download successfully. I have posted it to your account. Please follow these steps to download "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs":

1) Make sure you're using the latest version of iTunes. It can be downloaded free of charge from the Apple website:

http://www.apple.com/itunes/download

Note: Installing the latest version of iTunes will not affect your library or any items in your account that you haven't downloaded.

2) From the pull-down Store menu at the top, select Check for Available Downloads (if you're using iTunes 7, this option is called Check for Purchases). If you can't find this option, you can also click this link to check for purchases:

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/checkForPurchases

3) Enter your account name and password, then click the Check button. "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" should begin downloading and appear in your Purchased playlist. If you receive an error message while downloading, try again after turning off any firewall or web-accelerator software that you may have installed. If the download process is interrupted for any reason, it should resume once you reopen iTunes.

This article provides information about resuming interrupted downloads:

http://www.info.apple.com/kbnum/n93015

If "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" does not download successfully after you've followed these instructions, reply to this email and I'll have the issue investigated for you. In your reply, please include:

- The name of your Internet service provider (ISP).

- The type of Internet connection (such as dial-up, cable modem, or DSL).

- Any troubleshooting steps you may have taken.

- Any error messages you may have received.

Sincerely,

Brian
iTunes Store Customer Support
http://www.apple.com/support/itunes/ww/


Customer First Name : Mike
Customer Last Name : R
email :
Web Order # :
Support Subject : This movie never finished downloading
Sub Issue : Incomplete download
Comments : iTunes Account Name:
Platform : AppleTV/3.0.1 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.4.7) AppleWebKit/528.18
Video Name : Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Comments:
I got HD download 1% 24 min remaining, 1% 40min remaining, then shortly after 2% 2hr remaining.... I actually shutdown both computers to make sure no bandwidth being sucked by them. Still no improvement. We ended up going into the basement HT and watching via Comcast on demand "Land of the Lost" in HD (as so-so movie, but watchable, language not child appropriate at all). Comcast on demand always cues up and plays instantly btw. My hardware: SE Michigan, Comcast cable, I own the 2 month old SB6120 SURFboard®. DOCSIS® 3.0 Cable Modem, 2 month old AirPort Extreme, 1 month old AppleTV. AppleTV connection via 802.11n wireless network (all my other stuff hardwired via cat5e). My computer downloads/uploads for other "stuff" have been very fast, so I am at loss here. Come Saturday morning I turn on the AppleTV and immediately it starts playing the Movie, I had no choice! (on via Harmony remote, which turns on my HDTV, Onkyo AV, and the Apple TV) I pressed pause/stop immediately, but had just 23 hrs left..... Was hoping to use this sometime in near future, not immediately. So to sumamrize: -I tried to download it, but had issues with it, so shut off the AppleTV -next time upon turn AppleTV it instantly played the movie, so I had to watch it within 23 hours....

 

[mtbdudex]

Squeaky wheel gets greased!

Squeaky wheel gets greased
-I got refund
-Another "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" HD is in my que, with 30 days to view for free.
-I get three video credits to use

-----Original Message-----
From: iTunes Store [mailto:iTunesStoreSupport@apple.com]
Sent: Wednesday, January 13, 2010 2:18 PM
To: R, Mike
Subject: RE: This movie never finished downloading; Follow-up:

Dear Mike,

Its Rudy here from iTunes taking over from Brian. Hope this mail greets you with high spirits.

Please accept my sincere apologies for the frustration this download of the movie rental "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs" has caused. This issue you've experienced is very unusual. Ideally it should not take so much time for the download on your Apple TV.

I've refunded your purchase of $4.99 plus any applicable sales tax. The credit will be posted to your account within five business days towards the credit used for the purchase on your account "xxxxxxx.com".

Please wait at least few weeks before repurchasing this title. This will give us time to investigate the issue and make any corrections that may be necessary.

Mike, I have issued three video credits to your account "xxxxxxxxx.com", which you can use to buy the individual videos of your choice from the iTunes Store.

You may use these credits to test whether this issue is recurring which will determine whether it was a connection issue or issue with the download content.

Please note, however, that a video credit can only be used to purchase a TV Show episode or a music video. It cannot be used to purchase or rent a full-length movie or an episode of a TV Show that is listed as Season Only.

When you sign in to the iTunes Store with this account, the video credits will appear by your account name in the upper-right corner of the iTunes Store window. The next time you buy individual videos from the iTunes Store, your video credits will be used as payment until they all have been used or have expired.

If you don't see the credits, refresh your account information by signing out and back in to the iTunes Store:

1) Open iTunes.

2) Go to the iTunes Store.

3) From the Store menu, select Sign Out.

4) From the Store menu, select Sign In. Enter your account name and password and click Sign In.

Your video credits should now appear next to your account name.

I hope the offered refund and video credits pleases you, Mike. Please feel free to reach me for any further assistance.

Thank you for being a devoted iTunes customer.

Have a great wednesday!!

Sincerely,

 Rudy
iTunes Store Customer Support
Sun - Thu 7.00AM-4PM