New apple tv, slow downloads?

[Weaselboy]

FWIW

iTunes slowdowns with Google DNS

I understand the theory here, but I don't think that is all that is going on.

I have a ATV2 and PS3 set up side by side, both on a wired connection to a 15/2MB Internet connection. The PS3 plays HD Netflix movies flawlessly while the same movie is constantly interrupted by stops to buffer on the ATV2. I use OpenDNS at the router. How could this cause a problem on the ATV2 but not the PS3.

 

[Yvan256]

Not sure if it also applies to Netflix, but here's something I read about iTunes:
http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=10/12/31/0110226

 

[psirix]

I'm having the same exact issue, and I'm really bummed. Got the ATV2 as a gift for my dad and we tried to download an HD movie last night and we could never successfully watch it. I tried absolutely everything I could think of; tired wired and wireless internet connections, switched DNS back to ISP DNS Servers, reset the device, tried on different routers, etc. and still no luck. Netflix, internet radio, and all other services work fine without any issue.When running a bandwidth test from the Chicago, IL server from speedtest.net I get 22 down/4up.

I called Apple tech support today and they were absolutely useless. They told me I just "plan ahead" for when I want to use the device. What's the point of having such a device if I have to plan when I want to use it?

Grrrrr....

 

[FreeState]

I'm having the same exact issue, and I'm really bummed. Got the ATV2 as a gift for my dad and we tried to download an HD movie last night and we could never successfully watch it. I tried absolutely everything I could think of; tired wired and wireless internet connections, switched DNS back to ISP DNS Servers, reset the device, tried on different routers, etc. and still no luck. Netflix, internet radio, and all other services work fine without any issue.When running a bandwidth test from the Chicago, IL server from speedtest.net I get 22 down/4up.

I called Apple tech support today and they were absolutely useless. They told me I just "plan ahead" for when I want to use the device. What's the point of having such a device if I have to plan when I want to use it?

Grrrrr....

I was having problems last night as well. I fixed it by changing the channel on my Airport and changing its set up - I have an Airport Extreme that is extended by an Airport Express (N) and an Airport Express (b/g). I took the B/G Airport off and everything started working instantly again... I'm not certain of this but I think the AppleTV was connecting to the AE B/G because it use to be on the other side of the wall the TV is on, however I had moved it earlier in the day to another room, old house with Lath and Plaster walls... I think that was the hold up for me, but Im not 100% sure.

 

[Zeneth]

hi.

i am having same issues with slow download speed.

i am using speedtest.net to measure my up/down speeds and get the following results:

download - 0.83mb/s
upload - 0.15mb/s


these results seem very small compared to any other other posts i see.

Thoughts??

Zeneth

 

[fpnc]

hi.

i am having same issues with slow download speed.

i am using speedtest.net to measure my up/down speeds and get the following results:

download - 0.83mb/s
upload - 0.15mb/s


these results seem very small compared to any other other posts i see.

Thoughts??

Zeneth

Internet speeds will vary minute-by-minute, but if those results are representative of your ISP's performance then you really don't have the bandwidth that is necessary to use an Apple TV (at least not without very, VERY long waits before you can view the content). I'd check your local network setup (wireless problems?) and then test again.

 

[eleven59]

i had original atv and SD rentals never took longer than a minute to play and when they played, they were flawless the whole time... same DSL isp (at&t elite plan), same router (time capsule N), everything wireless like it always has been

with new atv, i have only had success with 2-3 netflix movies playing flawlessly.. i usually get the stop and start stuttering

just rented first atv2 SD movie tonight- taking almost 2hrs.... which never did before!!

checked speedtest... an awful .2 dl/.1up and over 600 ping!!! i used to play online games and never had issues!!

you think the isp is punishing me!! if thats the case they are not worth it!

wish i could get FIOS in my area!

 

[benoitgphoto]

i had original atv and SD rentals never took longer than a minute to play and when they played, they were flawless the whole time... same DSL isp (at&t elite plan), same router (time capsule N), everything wireless like it always has been

with new atv, i have only had success with 2-3 netflix movies playing flawlessly.. i usually get the stop and start stuttering

just rented first atv2 SD movie tonight- taking almost 2hrs.... which never did before!!

checked speedtest... an awful .2 dl/.1up and over 600 ping!!! i used to play online games and never had issues!!

you think the isp is punishing me!! if thats the case they are not worth it!

wish i could get FIOS in my area!

Just for trial purposes, you have a Time Capsule N, can you please set it up and the Apple Tv on the 5 GHz band and see if there is any improvement ?

 

[eleven59]

first off.. the movie i was told would take 2 hrs didnt seem to take but maybe 30min.. which is still 29min slower than it used to take

but i did switch to 5ghz- got 1.9dl/.3up....

 

[ntrigue]

This is either ISP or Apple servers. I started experiencing problems day after Christmas. Running a wireless speed test 40 feet away from Airport Extreme-N I see 21MBps/8MBps. My Apple TV is connected by ethernet to the router and Easy A rental is saying 317 hours 22 minutes. My girlfriend and I simply wished to sit-down and watch a movie with 5 minutes tonight.

 

[benoitgphoto]

first off.. the movie i was told would take 2 hrs didnt seem to take but maybe 30min.. which is still 29min slower than it used to take

but i did switch to 5ghz- got 1.9dl/.3up....

And what performance did it give you on rentals ? Did the SD start instantly ?

 

[emotion]

I saw this on NYE. Didn't watch the film I rented in the end because of it. I suspect this is a load balancing problem at Apple's end.

 

[UKGreg]

What I did to improve performance

All,

I had the same issues with my apple tv. Slow download / rentals stopping every 2-8minutes. I tried a number of things even using different n rated routers. Still the issue persisted. Even changing dns did not help.

My last step was to switch off " send data to Apple". Under settings- general. A few minutes later, my streaming was perfect. No more problems. Nothing else was changed nor do I know why this has worked. It might work for you.

Best of luck

Greg

 

[itsmemuffins]

All,

I had the same issues with my apple tv. Slow download / rentals stopping every 2-8minutes. I tried a number of things even using different n rated routers. Still the issue persisted. Even changing dns did not help.

My last step was to switch off " send data to Apple". Under settings- general. A few minutes later, my streaming was perfect. No more problems. Nothing else was changed nor do I know why this has worked. It might work for you.

Best of luck

Greg

I have that switched off from the start.

Maybe that's why I never have any problems.

 

[manj05]

First time post but had to register thanks to the genius above

Just changed the send data to apple toggle to no and streaming works perfectly

I used to have the same problem with streaming movies, sometimes it was perfect, sometimes it was 1 hr 20 mins etc, I used to unplug the apple tv and then the problem used to go away, I thought it was some caching issue, but god forbid I pause or watch something else in the middle and then I'd get the problem again

So anyway, I've changed this setting and done a quick smoke test, pausing, going to YouTube in the middle of the film etc, it all seems fine now

Thanks

Will be watching a movie with the kids later on so will post back if any problems still

Anyway thanks

 

[InfiniteLoopy]

I've never had "Send data to Apple" enabled and still have unpredictable results.
My "solution" if the download time is randomly changing or not progressing is to pull the plug out of the back, wait a few seconds and reinsert it, basically, a reboot. It seems to be better (though not each time) after this.
I also wonder, for those of us on wifi if it would help if the Apple TV wasn't in a cabinet and was just placed next to the TV.

I'm no expert but it seems that the service is particularly bad when lots of people are downloading (weekends, holidays...). Anyone else noticed this?

I'm also wondering if letting it go to sleep whilst downloading either stops or slows down the download ...

Basically need to sort this out.

 

[mcough]

Thank you

For those experiencing slow download speeds on the ATV2--try moving the box to another location. I moved the ATV a few feet away and my wait time for Inception (HD) went from 6 hours to ready to play within seconds. I am convinced the issue is interference with another device. Try moving the box--I think this will solve the problem for many of you.

Thank you I moved it away from TV and A Wii device. Speed increased tremendously. Thanks.

 

[eRondeau]

I don't say this very often, but it looks like Apple screwed this one up in a big way. Trying to rent a HD movie on my TV for Valentine's Day and we've got a 4+ hour wait to see it. Ridiculous! And yes I've rebooted my TV, Airport Express, and cable modem; moved everything around the room; switched-off "Send data to Apple"; changed my DNS servers three times; and verified that I'm getting a decent D/L speed from my ISP. I've even shut-off my PS3, laptops, and iPhone to ensure that my TV is the only device online. Nothing has worked. Looks like Apple either has a design flaw with this device or their servers simply can't keep up with demand. Either way, this long-time Apple customer is not happy right now.

 

[3lionsbecks]

I don't say this very often, but it looks like Apple screwed this one up in a big way. Trying to rent a HD movie on my TV for Valentine's Day and we've got a 4+ hour wait to see it. Ridiculous! And yes I've rebooted my TV, Airport Express, and cable modem; moved everything around the room; switched-off "Send data to Apple"; changed my DNS servers three times; and verified that I'm getting a decent D/L speed from my ISP. I've even shut-off my PS3, laptops, and iPhone to ensure that my TV is the only device online. Nothing has worked. Looks like Apple either has a design flaw with this device or their servers simply can't keep up with demand. Either way, this long-time Apple customer is not happy right now.

not sure why that happened to you but I rented The Town tonight in HD and it was read to go in just a few seconds.

Same night and a top 10 movie in HD with no problems. Seems like your ISP was screwing you over.

 

[WelcomeAboard]

Problem solved for me....

Got my appleTV2 back in November. Hated the thing because movie rentals took 9hrs+ to start.

After a lot of messing around finally established that it was my ISP that was the problem. PlusNET in the UK, contacted customers services and after a few trial and errors got hold of somebody who knew what they were doing. They identifed that PlusNET had not reconfigured their systems to recognise new AppleTV2, hence by default it was classed as 'file sharing' (due to the large downloads). AppleTV2 has now been recognised by PlusNET and since then my rentals start in seconds for any film at any time! AppleTV bliss.

My advice is get onto your ISP and make sure that they recognise it and do not class it as p2p file sharing.

 

[RedElectro]

I bought an ATV two days ago and after singing it's praises to the rest of the house, was left red-faced when we all decided to sit down and watch the HD version "Inception". Loading times varied from 2-3hrs to 10-16hrs on the several attempts I tried to get it to play. In the end we decided to leave it to the following day.

Last night we tried to play the movie again, but got similar loading times (even though it said it had loaded in the iTunes settings) again. After a few attempts I ended up browsing for a solution online (only for a few minutes) when a message popped up on the screen saying that the Movie was ready to play!! I clicked play and we watched the movie flawlessly from start to finish!! What's going on?

Streaming from my other Macs works flawlessly, so I think an interference issue with other equipment would effect this also? YouTube and other online services work perfectly too! I personally think this is a problem with Apple's servers. I'm currently getting 9mbs + internet speed.

 

[laurim]

I bought an ATV two days ago and after singing it's praises to the rest of the house, was left red-faced when we all decided to sit down and watch the HD version "Inception". Loading times varied from 2-3hrs to 10-16hrs on the several attempts I tried to get it to play. In the end we decided to leave it to the following day.

Last night we tried to play the movie again, but got similar loading times (even though it said it had loaded in the iTunes settings) again. After a few attempts I ended up browsing for a solution online (only for a few minutes) when a message popped up on the screen saying that the Movie was ready to play!! I clicked play and we watched the movie flawlessly from start to finish!! What's going on?

Streaming from my other Macs works flawlessly, so I think an interference issue with other equipment would effect this also? YouTube and other online services work perfectly too! I personally think this is a problem with Apple's servers. I'm currently getting 9mbs + internet speed.

Your story is exactly why you don't just leave the ATV on the loading screen when it tells you it'll take hours to load. That time estimation is calculated from a sampling of the download rate in one instance of time on one quality of connection. If that particular connection happens to be slow, you'll get a large wait number. If you back out of the movies section and go back in and restart the download, you often get a faster connection and the time estimation is much lower or you're ready to play. I did this trick on new year's and you may have to restart the download a few times before you find that fast connection.

Or you need to reset your modem (unplug/wait a few/plug in). I just had this happen to me last week. I rented HD Case 39. ATV said it would take 2 hrs 44 min, which is very unusual for me. My rentals are usually ready in seconds with cable "up to 12 Mbps" service. I did the back in and out thing first and was getting the same number so I immediately went to speedtest.com on my MBP and saw my current internet speed was less than 1 MBPS. I power cycled my cable modem, retested and it was back up to 12 Mbps. My rental started right away.

Streaming over an internet connection is not a straightforward thing. It's not a single tube that has a set amount of service all of the time for everybody. It's an ever-changing flux of 1s and 0s more like a highway system where some lanes are faster than others, some times of day, some vehicles and some cities are faster than others. It's usually up to us to get the obstacles out of the way to get to what iTunes is serving up.

 

[paulgarb]

Your story is exactly why you don't just leave the ATV on the loading screen when it tells you it'll take hours to load. That time estimation is calculated from a sampling of the download rate in one instance of time on one quality of connection. If that particular connection happens to be slow, you'll get a large wait number. If you back out of the movies section and go back in and restart the download, you often get a faster connection and the time estimation is much lower or you're ready to play. I did this trick on new year's and you may have to restart the download a few times before you find that fast connection.

Or you need to reset your modem (unplug/wait a few/plug in). I just had this happen to me last week. I rented HD Case 39. ATV said it would take 2 hrs 44 min, which is very unusual for me. My rentals are usually ready in seconds with cable "up to 12 Mbps" service. I did the back in and out thing first and was getting the same number so I immediately went to speedtest.com on my MBP and saw my current internet speed was less than 1 MBPS. I power cycled my cable modem, retested and it was back up to 12 Mbps. My rental started right away.

Streaming over an internet connection is not a straightforward thing. It's not a single tube that has a set amount of service all of the time for everybody. It's an ever-changing flux of 1s and 0s more like a highway system where some lanes are faster than others, some times of day, some vehicles and some cities are faster than others. It's usually up to us to get the obstacles out of the way to get to what iTunes is serving up.

A fair response but surely it is not the whole story - my network works fine most of the time and power off/on resets are just part of my regular regime as are a factory rest evey 2-3 months. The issue here is surely that the extremely long estimates many people are getting are inaccurate and do not update dynamically and the 'red face' (whether embarrassment or anger) is important.

I love my Apple TV because it performs the function I had in mind when I bought it (streaming my iTunes to the big TV) - but the rentals part really does leave a lot to be desired.

 

[laurim]

A fair response but surely it is not the whole story - my network works fine most of the time and power off/on resets are just part of my regular regime as are a factory rest evey 2-3 months. The issue here is surely that the extremely long estimates many people are getting are inaccurate and do not update dynamically and the 'red face' (whether embarrassment or anger) is important.

I love my Apple TV because it performs the function I had in mind when I bought it (streaming my iTunes to the big TV) - but the rentals part really does leave a lot to be desired.

I see this kind of behavior in all sorts of time estimates for activities. I work with video files and have to do a process called "rendering". For some reason, when I render in the codec H.264, the initial completion time is large but at a certain point the bottleneck breaks loose and all of a sudden it's done. I've also done the "stop downloading and restart for a faster download" while downloading files on a computer, especially while using notoriously bad hotel internet service.

I'm no networking expert, but I suspect constantly reassessing network conditions and readjusting the connection would be more of a burden to the streaming process than anyone would like. Netflix streaming constantly evaluates a person's connection and lowers the quality if a person's connection can't handle full quality. Watching on my XBox, this results in an interruption of the movie with a dialog screen while it rebuffers and the interruptions can happen quite often as the connection changes from high to low to high to low quality. Is this what you would like instead? Fortunately, Netflix adjusting on the ATV has been much more invisible for me.

 

[paulgarb]

I see this kind of behavior in all sorts of time estimates for activities. I work with video files and have to do a process called "rendering". For some reason, when I render in the codec H.264, the initial completion time is large but at a certain point the bottleneck breaks loose and all of a sudden it's done. I've also done the "stop downloading and restart for a faster download" while downloading files on a computer, especially while using notoriously bad hotel internet service.

I'm no networking expert, but I suspect constantly reassessing network conditions and readjusting the connection would be more of a burden to the streaming process than anyone would like. Netflix streaming constantly evaluates a person's connection and lowers the quality if a person's connection can't handle full quality. Watching on my XBox, this results in an interruption of the movie with a dialog screen while it rebuffers and the interruptions can happen quite often as the connection changes from high to low to high to low quality. Is this what you would like instead? Fortunately, Netflix adjusting on the ATV has been much more invisible for me.

Thanks laurim for the response - two things to get clear - I'm a UK user so Netflix is not an option and I don't tweak during rentals simply because I don't use rentals since I can't be certain of the time to be ready to view.

It is the uncertainty - I've always said that bad information is worse than no information and rental users are consistently fed bad information.

BTW - I suspect the fundamental reason is that the developers have way better broadband than I'll ever get.