Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

It takes hours until a rental movie starts to play

S

smoker

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jul 30, 2011
4
0
Yesterday I tried to rent a movie as an evening entertainment. When I wanted to start the movie (like I was able to after a minute), Apple TV told me that the movie was ready to be played in 3 hours. There was no evening entertainment of course! What is that about? Doesn't Apple TV stream movies anymore and I have to download the whole movie before I can watch it?

I am using the latest Apple TV and the latest firmware version.
 
It buffers in a certain amount of the movie so that there are no stalls during playback.

How fast is your connection?
 
Chundles said:
It buffers in a certain amount of the movie so that there are no stalls during playback.

How fast is your connection?
Click to expand...

I have 6 Mbit/s connection and never had problems before. Yesterday I rented the first movie in ages and maybe since the last firmware update...
 
I rented a movie on friday night (Exorcismus or whatever it was called) and had no issues whatsoever, ready in less than a minute and ran smoothly the entire time. Always restart your modem when things take longer than usual. That's the first thing to try.
 
You also have to be aware that any other users on your network can slow things down. If someone in the house has a torrent running or other large software download it can really make a difference.

Are you on wireless with your ATV? If so, how much signal do you have?
 
I am having the same problem and have been troubleshooting for a week now with Time Warner Cable. I am supposed to get 10 mbps down, and I usually do, but the instant I purchase and start streaming a tv show or movie in the iTunes store from my ATV2, my download speed drops to around 1-2 mbps. It takes FOREVER for any tv show to start playing.

If I unplug the ATV, the download speed remains extremely slow. The only way to get it back up to normal is to reset the modem.

TWC claims they are not throttling iTunes downloads to the ATV2, but I am beginning to wonder if this is untrue. It's beyond frustrating at this point.
 
klittle32 said:
I am having the same problem and have been troubleshooting for a week now with Time Warner Cable. I am supposed to get 10 mbps down, and I usually do, but the instant I purchase and start streaming a tv show or movie in the iTunes store from my ATV2, my download speed drops to around 1-2 mbps. It takes FOREVER for any tv show to start playing.

If I unplug the ATV, the download speed remains extremely slow. The only way to get it back up to normal is to reset the modem.

TWC claims they are not throttling iTunes downloads to the ATV2, but I am beginning to wonder if this is untrue. It's beyond frustrating at this point.
Click to expand...

Are you running your apple tv in 2.4 or 5Ghz on wireless?
 
I had the same experience with a cabled ATV2. I selected a movie and it told me there was going to be a 2 hour wait. My Internet connection usually tests over 5Mb/s and is TWC. I also tried it wireless on both bands and got even worse times (unsurprisingly), nothing else was running on the network at the time.

Needless to say I won't be renting a movie from iTunes again anytime soon!
 
I have the same issue... but mine is to be expected as I only have 3mbps download through suddenlink... unfortuanately that is the fastest that is offered in my town... too bad... but my netflix streams perfectly fine....
 
craigsharp said:
I have the same issue... but mine is to be expected as I only have 3mbps download through suddenlink... unfortuanately that is the fastest that is offered in my town... too bad... but my netflix streams perfectly fine....
Click to expand...

Yeah, Netflix works fine for me and I would use it if it had any streaming content I wanted to watch. The Netflix picture quality isn't wonderful either. For the moment I am stuck using rips of my DVDs or TWC on-demand.
 
gigemzach said:
Have you tried restoring the Apple TV? And your connection tests out to the full 10 Mbps when running on speedtest.net? Don't use Time Warner's test.
Click to expand...

I've restored the ATV2, and I've tested over the last 2 weeks now on both speedtest.net and Time Warner's speed test. They have both been giving roughly the same results.

Time Warner tier 3 tech support is stumped, so tomorrow I am going to swap out the modem. My fingers are crossed, but I am pretty frustrated and not too optimistic at this point.
 
I've been having the same issue on my 3mbit connection. I haven't found a solution yet. Clean reset of the AppleTV before I installed it. It just refuses to play until it's finished downloading the movie. One movie it was busy downloading for over 30 hours. No other devices using the internet.

I finally gave up, I just rent/buy from my itunes account on my Macbook Pro, download and then watch it later. I can usually grab an SD title in about 45-60 minutes.
 
Here's my theory. I know it may require a tinfoil hat, but hear me out first.

I have to believe that some ISPs (specifically cable TV companies) are slowing traffic to devices like the AppleTV on purpose to push customers towards their own pay-per-view services.

Comcast customers who have a terrible time with the Apple TV or something like a Netflix box may simply turn to Comcast's own PPV, which, of course, plays smoothly as possible.

I saw the same thing many, many times when I had Comcast as my ISP. Currently I have FiOS, which currently offers only internet and phone in my area (no FiOS TV currently). While obviously FiOS is faster than Comcast's internet service, or at least the tier I'm paying for is, I haven't had any trouble with PPV on the Apple TV.

Go figure.

I've got no proof, and I'm willing to be proven wrong, but that's my theory.
 
Well, for what it's worth...

I do have Cox (which is or was, allegedly, Comcast). Recently I've started receiving notification that they will start "soft" capping our usage in my area. I don't know about throttling, but certainly "persuading" you to upgrade to the next tier or "changing your habits" as a rep said when I called them about it.

I do believe cable companies are starting to lose their shorts to online services like itunes and netflix. I think this data cap is just the beginning. I suppose it could be related. I guess one way I could find out is to upgrade my service. :)
 
Try changing the DNS servers on your router. I was using Google's DNS and had this exact problem.

I changes my to 4.2.2.2 as my primary and Qwest as 2ndary and it works like a champ now
 
Just rented a movie last week and it played within a minute. Probably an issue with your provider or setup.
 
UPDATE: It must have been the modem. I swapped out my modem for a new one at TWC and everything has been smooth sailing for a few days now.

Apparently this wasn't a case of throttling, which is good news.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back