How long should it take to stream a movie?

[macelangelo]

Hi,

I'm trying to gauge how long it should take to stream a movie from a Mac Pro to the Apple TV.

A short film (12 mins long) that I bought on iTunes can stream and play in less than a minute.

A full-length feature film that I've ripped takes several minutes (at least 10) before it will play.

I'm also going to try a movie purchased from iTunes.

The movies are on my mac pro (not yet on the external drive), and I have the pro connected directly to an airport extreme base station. Downstairs I have the smaller airport extreme base set to extend the network.
On the main base station, I have the wireless set to 2.4 n only.

Should it really take this long to stream files from the mac to the apple tv?

is there anything else I could try?

Right now this is my biggest hang up with Apple TV. I wanted to move my dvd collection onto a hard drive and be able to transfer movies to an ipod/iphone/apple tv

But, if streaming is this slow, then I'm almost better off going the mini route with a 1 TB drive attached to it, or hack the Apple TV.

Thanks!

 

[nlivo]

Hmmm, there is definitely something wrong. I can watch a full-feature length film (sometimes around 2.5GB) straight away, with a buffer time of about 2-3 seconds. I'm sorry that I can't solve your problem...but I thought I'd just let you know, there is definitely something wrong.

 

[kresh]

I'm with nlivo. I stream everything wireless g to my AppleTV (the Hard drive is empty). Movies, DRM protected and unprotected, start playing within 2 or 3 seconds.

 

[msantoso]

not clear about your config, your mac pro directly connected as in wired connected or wireless connected to the airport extreme? I'm new to apple hardware but i never heard of smaller airport extreme, is it an airport express?
and is the AppleTV wired or wireless? It's connected to the extended network downstairs?

First, check your network throughput, go to activity monitor in Utilities. And select the network tab and stream movie and see data sent at what speed? Or maybe can try sync'ing to see as well. This really depends on your device range with the airport base station and interference.

You said you set the main base station to 802.11n @ 2.4GHz only, is your "smaller airport extreme" also an n network?

I think this will be your main concern. If you are running full 802.11n network, is it possible to run @ 5GHz?

I'm still using 802.11g linksys WRT54G router for streaming. I have an Airport Express 802.11n for airtunes in my baby's room. I experience unstable throughput with AirpprtExpress just being the router. Maybe because my LAN still has 802.11g desktop.

Oh and try changing channels to 6 or 11

 

[macelangelo]

clarifications

Sorry, here's some more info:

The mac pro is upstairs and it is plugged into the AEBS via ethernet cable (wired).

There is an Airport Express plugged in downstairs configured to extend the network. It's new, so I believe it is the latest model with N.

I'll try bumping to 5ghz and see if that makes any difference.

Thanks!

 

[msantoso]

and try syncing or streaming again and monitor the network throughput as mentioned previously.

cheers.

 

[jb60606]

It shouldn't take that long; are you sure there's nothing wrong with your network? Maybe run some ping tests between your Mac-Pro and ATV?

I get tons of network congestion and interference (I live in a building with about 20 other Airports), but even I can stream a movie nearly instantaneously.

 

[macelangelo]

Network related

Yep,

It's definitely network related.

I updated the AEBS to use N only at 5ghz and it works great!

I'll probably try a couple of other things and see if I can get it to work on b/g
since I have a couple of non-N items on the network.

Thanks!