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ATV3 likelihood of increased WiFi speed

R

rikscha

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 8, 2010
810
462
London
The current ATV2 connects to wifi n networks but only at a speed of max. 65mbit.

What do you think is the likelihood of increased wifi speeds with the new ATV3?

Especially if you are using ATV flash and trying to stream 1080p mkvs, you occasionally get a "buffering" message which annoys me.

A doubling of the throughput would certainly fix that problem.
 
rikscha said:
The current ATV2 connects to wifi n networks but only at a speed of max. 65mbit.

What do you think is the likelihood of increased wifi speeds with the new ATV3?

Especially if you are using ATV flash and trying to stream 1080p mkvs, you occasionally get a "buffering" message which annoys me.

A doubling of the throughput would certainly fix that problem.
Click to expand...

Agreed, it always annoyed me how the iOS devices have crippled wifi N speeds. I understand it for the iPods, iPhones and iPads since they have limited power supply, but the ATV should connect at full speed. Wifi Syncing is always rather slow; it would be nice to have a speed bump. But given the fact that the new ATVs don't even have gigabit ethernet, I'm thinking the same chips are being used as in the previous generation. So don't hold your hopes up.
 
blueroom said:
Converting your videos to H.264 will reduce the bandwidth required considerably. My ATV2 and iPad 1 have no problems whatsoever.
Click to expand...

I know there are ways around it, but I still think they could at least double the throughput. I am not asking for the full 300mbit. It will certainly have to do with power consumption. I will get my 120mbit broadband now and cant use the full speed with the ATV2. Every mbit is appreciated especially when downloading 1080p content from the itunes store. Ethernet is not an option, they can scrap that anyway.
 
Apple's 1080i content is H.264 and highly compressed. It'll probably be around 1GB per hour of video which should present no problem for 802.11N
 
rikscha said:
The current ATV2 connects to wifi n networks but only at a speed of max. 65mbit.

What do you think is the likelihood of increased wifi speeds with the new ATV3?

Especially if you are using ATV flash and trying to stream 1080p mkvs, you occasionally get a "buffering" message which annoys me.

A doubling of the throughput would certainly fix that problem.
Click to expand...

YOu sure you don;t have anything else affecting your network? I stream mkvs 1080p all the time, and i never get any buffering, i got a few the other day and I tough it was weird so i went and check and my other computer was downloading a patch (~4GB) so that's why my network was maxing out, otherwise it always stream just fine. My router is upstairs and the ATV is downstairs on te bedroom
 
maturola said:
YOu sure you don;t have anything else affecting your network? I stream mkvs 1080p all the time, and i never get any buffering, i got a few the other day and I tough it was weird so i went and check and my other computer was downloading a patch (~4GB) so that's why my network was maxing out, otherwise it always stream just fine. My router is upstairs and the ATV is downstairs on te bedroom
Click to expand...

My apple tv is 30cm away from my router. It only happens very occasionally, mainly in very fast scenes (mostly massive action scenes) where clearly the bitrate is going up the roof. My mkvs are usually between 10-15gb and are being streamed from a time capsule.
 
Apple's unlikely to "fix" something that isn't broken. You've hacked your ATV2 in an attempt to get it to do something it wasn't designed to do.

Why not just run your videos through Handbrake on the ATV2 setting?
 
Converting ahead of time will always give better quality than AirPlay Mirroring -- maybe much better.
 
peterjcat said:
Converting ahead of time will always give better quality than AirPlay Mirroring -- maybe much better.
Click to expand...

Depends on how good the encoding abilities of the new Ivy Bridge intel CPUs will be. If they can encode at 1080p, your TV wouldn't see any benefit of the pre-conversion.
 
rikscha said:
My apple tv is 30cm away from my router. It only happens very occasionally, mainly in very fast scenes (mostly massive action scenes) where clearly the bitrate is going up the roof. My mkvs are usually between 10-15gb and are being streamed from a time capsule.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty positive it is something on your system, either on the network, maybe on the time capsule. I stream as i said same mkvs they are usually 15G up to 28ish GB and I never have loading issues unless my computer is doing something else (and even then that only happen to me once).
 
JohnDoe98 said:
Depends on how good the encoding abilities of the new Ivy Bridge intel CPUs will be. If they can encode at 1080p, your TV wouldn't see any benefit of the pre-conversion.
Click to expand...

It does depend on that, but so far hardware encoding has been pretty unimpressive. And of course there's 1080p and there's 1080p.
 
peterjcat said:
It does depend on that, but so far hardware encoding has been pretty unimpressive. And of course there's 1080p and there's 1080p.
Click to expand...

It does, but apparently the 1080p on the iTunes store that the ATV 3 can handle, according to an article today by Ars Technica is quite good. The ATV 3 hardware may well be capable of better than what iTunes delivers.
 
I'm not sure they have to. Ever since the new ATV software update, I have had zero wireless stutters or skips, even for relatively fat 1080p BR rips, and this is on a "weak" ATV2 with downsampling in realtime to 720p! With less processing to do with the ATV3, I can't imagine it would perform any worse -- the data feed is visible when you start up a file and it's getting far more than enough throughput on wifi-n. I think the high profile fix was a bigger deal than we realized. Of course, this is feeding video to the ATV via iTunes as it was designed, not a jailbreak, so YMMV.

I just hope ATV3 fixes the framerate! I want real 24fps, which my TV supports, not 30fps interpolating a 24fps source file. There are $45 blu-ray players that can do this right -- why can't Apple?
 
I havent updated to the latest version yet, this would break my jailbreak.

I'll wait a bit and will then post again. new jailbreak should be on its way.
 
Mike Valmike said:
I just hope ATV3 fixes the framerate! I want real 24fps, which my TV supports, not 30fps interpolating a 24fps source file. There are $45 blu-ray players that can do this right -- why can't Apple?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the screenshot in the Verge review of the ATV3 only shows 50Hz and 60Hz output options for 1080p... I hope 24Hz is something they can add in a software update.
 
by now someone should be able to comment on increased wifi speeds! is it still connecting with max 65mbit?
 
rikscha said:
The current ATV2 connects to wifi n networks but only at a speed of max. 65mbit.

What do you think is the likelihood of increased wifi speeds with the new ATV3?

Especially if you are using ATV flash and trying to stream 1080p mkvs, you occasionally get a "buffering" message which annoys me.

A doubling of the throughput would certainly fix that problem.
Click to expand...
My bet is you're using XBMC, could that be correct? XBMC doesn't buffer more than a few seconds, which means you'll constantly encounter problems with larger files. ATF Flash (black) buffers a bit more (not sure how much though) and doesn't encounter buffering issues very often, and even then only with bad connection. Using the native ATV2 media player, you'll "never" (maybe a movie with constant spikes from the first second will be a bit problematic) encounter these problems since it's going to use all available memory for buffering.

So why would Apple want to fix a problem that only occurs when you a) use a software they don't want you to use to b) play content the ATV2 doesn't support?

rikscha said:
I know there are ways around it, but I still think they could at least double the throughput. I am not asking for the full 300mbit. It will certainly have to do with power consumption. I will get my 120mbit broadband now and cant use the full speed with the ATV2. Every mbit is appreciated especially when downloading 1080p content from the itunes store.
Click to expand...
The 1080p content from the iTunes store probably have a lower bit rate than the 1080p mkv's you're playing (they're weighing in at around 4 GB), and considering how the ATV2 media player works, 65 Mbps is more than enough.

Ethernet is not an option, they can scrap that anyway.
Click to expand...
rikscha said:
My apple tv is 30cm away from my router. It only happens very occasionally, mainly in very fast scenes (mostly massive action scenes) where clearly the bitrate is going up the roof. My mkvs are usually between 10-15gb and are being streamed from a time capsule.
Click to expand...

You have the ATV2 30 cm from your router but ethernet is not an option, you've jailbroken your device, you're using third party software, you're playing content the device isn't made to handle... Dude. Really?

Not to be a fanboy or anything, but this is just not Apple's problem.
 
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