Q: Apple TV HD Rental Streaming Problem

Just adding my 2c worth. Stuck on downloading as movie even begin downloading. Found a comment elsewhere to flick to internet or podcast play that for a few seconds then go back to movie. To my surprise I found that all that time I had been waiting for movie to start downloading it had been actually downloading but something presumably software related had got stuck. As far as I concerned this is not network/wifi related. Apple fix the software for streaming movies.

Just got a brand new unit back from Apple Care (very quick delivery too.) Watched a movie on Friday night, no problem. Watched one last night, paused, no problem. Paused again with 20 minutes to go (the whole movie had downloaded) and guess what - got the same old loading issue!

The fix in this case was > go to YouTube > play 30 secs of a clip > go back to movie rental. Movie played straight away.

This confirms in my mind that the issue is with Apple's software. I know that ATV is considered a hobby product, but it is an expensive hobby if they have to issue a lot of refunds...

I'm running into the same streaming issue. It shouldn't take hours on end to watch a 45 minute TV show, it makes me want to sell my ATV2 and just watch everything on my iMac.

My setup includes both ATV1 and ATV2.  I have downloaded/streamed a movie directly on ATV2 and don't remember any stuttering problems.  Last night I watched an iTunes movie that I download to a Toshiba laptop via streaming to my ATV2 without ANY problem.  I did let it get a few minute start and the "gas gauge" ran well ahead of the actual position in the movie which was just over 2 hours long.  Absolutely no stuttering.  When the movie was finished, I confirmed that the entire movie was then stored temporarily on the ATV2 by starting the movie over and then running it a 3X speed through the entire movie.

I then turned off my Toshiba and powered up my MBP to steam a 45 minute TV show, again using my ATV2 and it played fine also.

I'm wondering if most of the reports here about stuttering/pausing are caused by not letting the ATV2 get a head start before starting the video.

Well after all is said and done, like every other "New Apple Product Launch" this one has met with problems. I dont understand how everyone here is acting so surprised. To be honest with you, I expected more from this product but am bitterly dissapointed with it as it is. Time to look up how to jailbreak it and see what else I can get out of it if streaming HD Movies isn't going to work for me (verified not working. Loading Time in excess of 3 hrs!!!)

Apple get your **** together. Sick of paying for your products to find they never work as intended straight off the bat.

I have now actually stopped using my ATV2 to rent movies! Do make sure if you have pausing-during-playback issues that affect your ability to enjoy a movie in it's entirety that you get a refund via the iTunes Store.

I hear rumours circulating (on the MacWorld website) that Apple are possibly launching an Apple branded TV. Kind of makes me wonder if that is the case, will they give the rental streaming service more attention? It would make sense, if the speculation is correct, to fix this issue or the Apple brand and credibility will take another knock before the branded TV units are off the shelves.

Don't get me wrong, I'm what I guess is referred to as an Apple Evangelist and have bought plenty of hardware and software, with no intention of jumping ship. This is perhaps just a little iceberg in their path...

I wish I had read this before I bought my ATV.  No problems watching Netflix but 3hr plus wait time for ATV movie.  May just take it back and get a  refund....first time I have been disappointed with an Apple product and a little shocked that this issue was reported last year and still an issue.

I have been having lots of streaming issues, but not with the rental movies side of things. My issues appear to stem from iTunes.

I have a good signal to the ATV2 box and use an N Router.

I think that a fast router and high speed internet is essencial for movie rentals and this combination seems to work great for me, Renting movies and Youtube'ing etc.

If however I try to stream music from iTunes, my woes begin. MP3's are not too bad, though I still get the occasional jam. If however I play M4A's (Lossless), it usually takes foever to start playing and once it does, it soon stops again and continues loading. If I close iTunes down and start again, it often fixes the issue for a while, but not always. Any fix is usually only temporary.

With movies and TV Shows that I stream from iTunes, I get similar issues, but not as bad M4A's.

I thought that perhaps it was due to file size, but it is not, as I can play 4gb+ movies, but struggle with 20MB M4A.

I really do not believe that it is the Apple TV unit itself, I am certain that it is a problem with iTunes.

If you are just using Apple TV for renting movies, I would suggest getting a good, fast N Router.

I am told that my solution is to Jailbreak the ATV. I am told that if you can take iTunes out of the equasion, Apple TV work flawlessly. I am not comfortable Jailbreaking though, so if anyone has a legitimate solution for my problem, I would really appreciate knowing.

I use an 8 Core Mac Pro with 6 GB of RAM, so I can't see there being issues with computer itself and the hard drives are OK as I can happily play directly to my monitor or sound card.

It mst be iTunes struggling to output data to Apple TV.

I really do not believe that it is the Apple TV unit itself, I am certain that it is a problem with iTunes.

If you are just using Apple TV for renting movies, I would suggest getting a good, fast N Router.

I've got one of those, and a solid 10MB connection and I can play/steam iTunes and other web-based (YouTube) content without problems.

I only have problems with streaming movies. I have even erratically got messages telling me a movie is HDCP content and my Toshiba HDTV can not play this format. That's AFTER a movie has been purchased! Switching off ATV, unplugging everything a rebooting clears that, so the conclusion in my case, is the Apple TV movie system is the issue, not iTunes.

For what it's worth, I'm in the UK and my ISP is Virgin Media. I've got an excellent 10MB connection and have found the best channels for my wi-fi are 2 and 6.

I am have the same problem and evidently looking at the post dates, it appears that Apple doesn't care or this problem should have gone away.  I got stucked this day after wasting several hours of my time to get it resolved.  I ran the network test.  What good is that???  All it ever states is that it is done.  What a Joke!!!!!!

IMAC i7 27 16g 2tb

My problems are solved. There seems to be a common a problem with Netgear Routers, but thankfully, there is a ridiculously easy solution. You're going to kick yourself.

I use a Netgear N300 Wireless N Router.

To solve Apple TV streaming issues, I simply went into the Router Manager and turned off that nasty QOs thingy.  Apple TV2 is now perfect!

I'm no expert, but the QOs setting is an old Multimedia function that Netgear Routers default to being switched on. Since Apple TV is designed to work with Apple Airports and Airports don't do QOs, Apple TV does not like this QOs thingy switched on.

So you just need to go into the Router manager (through your browser) and switch QOs off.

Hope this helps!

My problem was solved when I reverted my airport extreme's dns settings to the defaults. (I had changed them to google's dns last year during an ISP outage). This took my stream load times from hours to minutes. Hope this helps.

Any evidence that apple is helping with this?

Has anyone found a fix since apple doesn't seem to care?

Apple really doesn't care. After a few days of a lot of frustration over this same problem, I wrote to Apple for their support. They didn't even read my email and sent me random intructions on how to update iTunes! I was originally a fan of this product, and at least a handful of friends bought it through my advice. How much I regret doing this. There is no user experience worse than seating in your couch ready to watch a movie with your wife and not be able to, given a bug from a company that is supposed to provide the best experience on earth. Apple, please do something about it and fix this bug!!!

I understand fully your frustration! They are leaving the door open for the comeback of GoogleTV, and their attitude will be detrimental with the proposed new Television that will incorporate the AppleTV.