Q: Apple TV HD Rental Streaming Problem

Just to add my tuppence worth. Same thing happening with me, ready to play in x minutes, where x is a very indeterminate variable. Pretty disappointing. Where's the refund for the movie, and the compensation?

I just got my ATV2 yesterday and tried my first HD movie rental (wireless). I was very disappointed. The movie would play for a while then freeze and load just as dozens of people complained in this thread. According to Apple (http://support.apple.com/kb/TS3623), a sustained 6.5 Mbps internet connection is required for HD streaming, but a speedtest.net connection shows 13.4 Mbps. Sound familiar?

I googled the problem and applied a DNS fix posted for Netflix, which fixed the iTunes streaming problem. You just need to change the DNS server to Google's public DNS server. It fixed the problem and I watched the last hour of the film without any issues. I paused a couple of times and the buffer progress bar was well ahead of the play bar. Hope this works for you. I got this from a site called compunoodle. Here are the instructions, since I'm not sure if the forums block URLs.

1. Start your Apple TV 2 and navigate to Settings => General => Network and click on Configure TCP/IP.

2. Select “Manually” next to Configure IP.

3. Click “Done” on the IP Address screen and do the same for both the Subnet Mask and Router Address screens.

4. Configure the DNS Address screen with the following IP address: 008.008.008.008 and click “Done.”

5. Put the ATV2 to sleep, unplug the power cord, wait 15 seconds, restart the ATV2 and enjoy iTunes HD streaming.

Hope this works for you as well. Loving my ATV2.

Thanks for the fix. I've applied them to my ATV2 and although I haven't streamed an HD rental yet, HD previews play almost instantaneously. I'm cautiously optimistic.

YoungTurk wrote:
Thanks for the fix. I've applied them to my ATV2 and although I haven't streamed an HD rental yet, HD previews play almost instantaneously. I'm cautiously optimistic.

HD previews streamed without issue before I applied the fix. The real test will be trying to stream an HD movie.

Is the fix still working for you xtrailer?

No eres el único, mi tío, su ex, y yo tenemos Apple TV y todos nos pasa lo mismo y no entiendo porque. Apple needs to fix the problem for streaming in Puerto Rico. And also better the service

Well I bought 50 feet of cable and hooked up the tv with no wireless and 10mbps speed. 1st movie worked and the second was back to the 20 hours load time. Still thinking it's the content providers.

Not a tech guy. Could someone explain in lameness terms what this is doing and why it would help?

YoungTurk wrote:
Is the fix still working for you xtrailer?

Worked very well. Streaming another HD movie now. I started to stream within 20 seconds of buying the movie and the buffer bar is now twice the length of the movie progress bar. The fix worked like a charm. Will report again after I try a few other movies over the next 1-2 weeks.

Message was edited by: xtrailer

jclorden wrote:
Not a tech guy. Could someone explain in lameness terms what this is doing and why it would help?

Not exactly in layman's terms, but hope it helps:
http://www.compunoodle.com/fix-apple-tv-2-netflix-streaming-problems/

I tried this, and my ATV stopped connecting to my wireless network altogether. I had to reset it and go back to the default DNS settings. My Roku, works just great though.

I had previously tried the Google Public DNS setting for my cable modem and still had buffering problems with Netflix. I am now attempting your fix on the ATV itself and will post the results, once I've had a chance to test a couple downloads.

Just a note to those having issues, I had the same problem even though I have my wireless N network running at 5 ghz, I can usually stream movies with 5.1 around the house though it took a lot of tinkering to get that to happen. Then I got two new apple tv's and had the same issues 3 hours 4 hours etc. I called Cablevision and for ten dollars more a month got the boost which most providers most likely offer and uped my speed to 30 mbps download and 5 upload instead of 20 download and 2 up. I watched my first movie, no issues, it played almost immediately then this Friday night watched Social Network at prime time, again played right away and then paused it half way through and used my second apple tv in the bedroom to finish the movie where I left off, again played right away and never had a glitch. So I'm sure most people would say that is not a fix, but streaming 5.1 sound and high bit rate movies is tricky and needs bandwidth. Netflix adjusts on the fly to whatever your network speed is and is in stereo not 5.1. itunes HD movies have 5.1 surround and streams at a fixed bit rate so if things are not just right well you know the answer.

Well so far so good using the Google DNS. Using just ethernet didn't fix it. I plan on testing whether wireless w/ google DNS works later in the week in order to attempt and truely isolate the issue (for me, seems there could be multiple issues at play here).

Still, if anyone could explain.. if switching to the google DNS is the answer for me, then why... other then the basic "a DNS is the internets phonebook" answer, I don't REALLY know what a DNS does or why changing to the google DNS would help with these downloads.

I have just tested the Google Public DNS setting and immediately experienced buffering problems.

As a result, I restored my previous settings...having had reasonably good experience with them over the last week.

This time the ATV was awful. It took me over 3 hours to watch a 2:08 Netflix HD Movie. There were more than 80 interruptions. Simultaneously, I downloaded the same movie onto our MacBook Pro. It streamed flawlessly and stopped only when I elected to pause, while waiting for the ATV to catch up.

You might say I am a glutton for punishment and you could be right. I simply decided to run a definitive test.

Note: During the ATV test, I also ran Speedtest.net. The download speed was 22.24 Mb/sec. Currently, it is running more slowly, but in excess of 15.0 Mb/sec.

I also logged the signal to noise ratio on both devices. They both connect wirelessly ton a 2.4 Ghz network on our Airport Extreme. The SNR was between 20 and 25 for both, with the MacBook Pro...if anything... a little lower than the ATV. While low, that had no apparent impact on MacBook Pro's performance. The thruput rate for the MacBook Pro was around 130 - 140 Mb/sec, but the thruput rate for the ATV never exceeded 65. (That has been consistently true ever since I installed our first ATV. When I connected it to a 5.0 Ghz network, the thruput rate was even lower.)

I don't seem to be able to break the code. Any suggestions other than slap sticking it back?