New apple tv, slow downloads?

[laurim]

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.

Not sure what you mean here. When I talk about quality being tweaked on the fly, that's automatic, not something we would do. What I DO do during a rental that appears to be slow is all those tricks to get a better connection on my end. If your country's ISP or iTunes server service is bad, there isn't anything you can do except complain to them to change.

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

I do think Apple made a mistake not making it clear what the minimum speed requirements are for HD and SD rentals. I think if they had been upfront about that, people's expectations would have been managed better.

 

[Gaelic2]

I watch Netflix immediately with no problems. Everything streams beautifully from my computer. The ONLY problem is renting from Apple. It took 2.5 hours to download a movie witch stopped half way through for another 35 minutes to download the rest. This is totally unacceptable and I will not rent movies from Apple until it is fixed. My download speeds range from 2GPs to 2.5 Gps and does well with anything but Apple movie rentals.

 

[keviha]

I watch Netflix immediately with no problems. Everything streams beautifully from my computer. The ONLY problem is renting from Apple. It took 2.5 hours to download a movie witch stopped half way through for another 35 minutes to download the rest. This is totally unacceptable and I will not rent movies from Apple until it is fixed. My download speeds range from 2GPs to 2.5 Gps and does well with anything but Apple movie rentals.

Same exact experience as mine. Also, I have ATV1 and ATV2 hooked up. iTunes movie/tv show purchases through ATV1 begin playing very quickly....just like Netflix on ATV2....but iTunes movies/tv shows rented/purchased through ATV2....can be hours to download. It really is pretty ridiculous.

 

[RedElectro]

I just don't understand it. I had the same problem. Tried for three nights to watch a rented movie and gave up each time, until finally it streamed almost immediately! It just seems totally irregular! Sometimes taking hours, sometimes almost instant.

I don't have a problem with broadband speeds or streaming from my own personal itunes library, so it's got to be something to do with the servers?

It needs sorting out, I know that much!

 

[laurim]

I watch Netflix immediately with no problems. Everything streams beautifully from my computer. The ONLY problem is renting from Apple. It took 2.5 hours to download a movie witch stopped half way through for another 35 minutes to download the rest. This is totally unacceptable and I will not rent movies from Apple until it is fixed. My download speeds range from 2GPs to 2.5 Gps and does well with anything but Apple movie rentals.

Where in the world does one get 2.5 Gps speed?? Do you mean 2 Mbps? Based on your time description, sounds more like 2 Mbps. I have 12 Mbps and rentals start almost immediately. 2 Mbps is insufficient speed for renting HD movies.

 

[Gaelic2]

Where in the world does one get 2.5 Gps speed?? Do you mean 2 Mbps? Based on your time description, sounds more like 2 Mbps. I have 12 Mbps and rentals start almost immediately. 2 Mbps is insufficient speed for renting HD movies.

Sorry, I quoted the wrong speed. 2.5 GPs would be wonderful! You are correct. I get 2.5 mbps and I have no problem with downloads except for Apple film rentals. It has to be coming from Apple's end. I have only rented 2 films but had exactly the same trouble.Where can you get 12 Mbps and at what price?

 

[laurim]

Sorry, I quoted the wrong speed. 2.5 GPs would be wonderful! You are correct. I get 2.5 mbps and I have no problem with downloads except for Apple film rentals. It has to be coming from Apple's end. I have only rented 2 films but had exactly the same trouble.Where can you get 12 Mbps and at what price?

I have cable internet from Comcast. "up to 12 Mbps" is their second lowest service and it costs about $45/mo bundled with cable service. I did speedtest as I was writing and right now I have 16.5 Mbps. Sometimes, I've had 20 and other times I had 4. When I was at 4, my rental didn't start immediately so I power-cycled my modem and got my speed back up so the rental would start immediately.

iTunes is the only service on ATV that doesn't adjust stream quality based on a person's internet service. So, I'm not surprised that you can watch Netflix's throttled stream fine and not iTunes full quality stream on 2 Mbps service. The only thing Apple could do on their end is to change your stream to something less than full quality so your service can handle it at a rate acceptable to you.

 

[dmm219]

This is a problem with Apple Servers. Anyone who has an ATV1 has been experiencing this for a long time. It is hit or miss. always has been...its why many of us old farts were very suspicious of a "streaming only" version of ATV...at least on ATV1, you could download and store the night before and have it ready to go perfect when you want it.

Its clearly not the ATV or your ISP if you netflix and streaming work fine (mine are rock solid).

Hopefully, once the NC server farm is up and running, this will be fixed.

 

[laurim]

This is a problem with Apple Servers. Anyone who has an ATV1 has been experiencing this for a long time. It is hit or miss. always has been...its why many of us old farts were very suspicious of a "streaming only" version of ATV...at least on ATV1, you could download and store the night before and have it ready to go perfect when you want it.

Its clearly not the ATV or your ISP if you netflix and streaming work fine (mine are rock solid).

Hopefully, once the NC server farm is up and running, this will be fixed.

Traffic on servers can be a general issue during high use times but, bottom line, no number of additional servers is going to make someone with a slow internet connection get streaming 720p HD movies any faster. There is a minimum speed for decent HD streaming and I think 2 Mbps is under that minimum. Someone on here posted a list of connection speeds and how long you should expect to wait for an HD movie rental to start. Like I've said, you can't compare Netflix streaming with iTunes streaming. Totally different methodologies.

What Apple SHOULD do is post the minimum internet speed a person should have so they have the right expectations.

 

[farmboy69]

Agreed!

What the ___ is going on with Apple TV 2? I just replaced one of my Apple TV 1s with a TV 2... and there are several issues.... 1. It's outrageously slow to start streaming from iTunes cloud compared with ATV1. 2. There are a VAST number of shows that are now unavailable - since they were BUY not RENT.

Disappointing this ATV2 is! If someone could explain how to get around the slow streaming - to get it back to where ATV1 was... please please please respond to the thread. Thanks!