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Rented Tv Shows
- Thread starter techguy40
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It depends on the speed of your Internet connection. Mine usually starts right away (10mbps).
Yeah, you'll have to wait. Netflix and iTunes take a different approach to streaming. Netflix adjusts the video quality according to your internet speed, so it will always stream instantly at the expense of quality. iTunes will always have the same quality video and will buffer it to your internet speed.
Probably the main reason iTunes does this is because you are paying for each individual rental. It wouldn't be cool if two people are paying the same for each rental but one gets HD and the other gets really bad quality.
Probably the main reason iTunes does this is because you are paying for each individual rental. It wouldn't be cool if two people are paying the same for each rental but one gets HD and the other gets really bad quality.
Yep
Just kind of sucks, if you have a date and want to rent a movie or tv show instantly on the new apple tv and you have to tell her to wait. They get very impatient.
If TV shows take this long, i can't imagine how long the wait will be for a movie.
I rented Splice on my ATV2 last night and it was instantly available for viewing and the quality was great! Btw, I'm not endorsing the rental of Splice... Only if you want to laugh a lot.
I have cox Internet 15 mbps service with netgear 2.4 ghz N router.
The 
TV will attempt to buffer enough of the download in hopes that your internet connection will be fast enough to download the rest while watching, and before you get to that point in the video.
This practice has been done for years on streaming video.
If your internet isn't fast enough, you will wait. 30 minute wait? Sounds like your internet was already tied up and/or very little bandwidth was available.
TV will attempt to buffer enough of the download in hopes that your internet connection will be fast enough to download the rest while watching, and before you get to that point in the video.This practice has been done for years on streaming video.
If your internet isn't fast enough, you will wait. 30 minute wait? Sounds like your internet was already tied up and/or very little bandwidth was available.
You shouldn't have to wait 30 minutes for it to start playing unless you have veeeeeeeeery slow internet. Most people say tv and movie rentals from itunes start in less than 10 seconds or so. If you have 10mbps or higher it will probably start almost instantly. Maybe you had something maxing out your internet speed at the time.
The average broadband speed in the U.S. is WELL below 10Mbps (in late 2009 it was less than 4Mbps). I have 3Mbps DSL and it takes a long time for HD streaming to begin -- for HD perhaps just as long as the length of the content you want to watch. Apple SD content and Netflix start pretty quickly, for either of those I'm seeing 15 seconds or less.
A hard drive wouldn't help in this case. If you rent or buy from iTunes you still need the data to be transferred from the iTunes Store to your Apple TV and that takes just as long whether you have a hard drive or not. Besides that, the ATV2 has 8GBs of flash storage which functions very much like a FAST hard drive. I'm not saying that directly attached hard drive storage wouldn't be a nice add to tha ATV2, but it wouldn't help the OP solve this particular problem.
I have only rented one TV show, but it was ready to start playing within about 30 seconds. I have Comcast internet, which is much faster than the Verizon DSL I used to have.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. The average in the U.S. is around 5 mbps now. I meant at that speed, it should be ready in about 10 seconds or so. However, if your speed is like 10mbps or higher, it should be ready to play almost instantly.
Do you have a source for that 5Mbps? I'd think that it is really closer to 4Mbps but even at 5Mbps an HD movie/TV show isn't going to start in "10 seconds." I'd estimate that at 5Mbps a one hour HD show will still buffer for a few minutes before it will start. Standard definition should start pretty quickly on practically any broadband connection but an SD stream is only about 1.5Mbps while iTunes 720p with 5.1 audio will run close to 4.5Mbps which means that you won't get fast and smooth streaming on HD content unless your connection is comfortably above 5Mbps. If you're below 5Mbps then you'll have a notable period of buffering before the uninterrupted playback begins.
In any case, without knowing all of the details surrounding the OP's experience your characterization of his internet service as "veeeeeeeeery slow" was probably a bit of stretch. Techguy40 may just have a fairly average broadband connection.
I'll answer that. Akamai reported in July 2010 that the average speed of a broadband connection in the United States was 4.7 Mbps.
Here is the link:
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Akamai-US-16th-In-Broadband-Speed-109597