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Tim2797

Q: Unfortunately weare limited to 6mps In my area. Downloading a movie from iTunes takes about four hours. Anything I can do?

Our area is limited to 6mps download.  Takes about 4hours to download movie from iTunes. Any suggestions to do it faster?

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Posted on Feb 9, 2015 12:51 PM

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Q: Unfortunately weare limited to 6mps In my area. Downloading a movie from iTunes takes about four hours. Anything I can do?

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  • by Kappy,Solvedanswer

    Kappy Kappy Feb 9, 2015 12:53 PM in response to Tim2797
    Level 10 (271,328 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 9, 2015 12:53 PM in response to Tim2797

    Your best bet is to move.

  • by Alley_Cat,Helpful

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Feb 9, 2015 1:07 PM in response to Tim2797
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Feb 9, 2015 1:07 PM in response to Tim2797

    Tim2797 wrote:

     

    Our area is limited to 6mps download.  Takes about 4hours to download movie from iTunes. Any suggestions to do it faster?

    I'm on 4-5 Mbps, yes a hassle but there you go.

     

    With a 6 Mbps connection (if it truly mainatins that) you should be able to play 720p HD nearly instantly - just adjust the iTunes playback settings in the AppleTV menus from 1080p to 720p - you may notice little difference.

     

    Personally I want best iTunes quality if paying so am prepared to wait, but even with 1080p I can usually watch in 30-40 minutes.

     

    One thing to remember with AppleTV 2 and 3 is that they do not have much memory - so if you rent a movie and then use the device for something else while waiting, when you go back to the rental the process may start from scratch.

     

    If you are prepared to plan ahead a little, and have a computer running iTunes on the LAN with Home Sharing enabled swithced on, then use iTunes for the rental in advance - once the rental has fully downloaded (a couple of hours at 6 Mbps) it will be available to start watching for 30 days, and will appear on AppleTv under a new Computers>Rentals category - it must be fully downloaded but once it is playback should be near instantaneous unless your LAN is equally slow.  Once you start watching you have the usual 24/48 hours to complete viewing depending on wher you live, but this can be very useful if you want to view th movie a second time within the viewing period as it does not need to download again (I've had 900MB SD rentals start downloading again from scratch once viewed when rented on AppleTV itself - annoying when someone else wanted to watch a few hours later).

  • by Phil0124,

    Phil0124 Phil0124 Feb 9, 2015 1:13 PM in response to Tim2797
    Level 7 (27,641 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 9, 2015 1:13 PM in response to Tim2797

    I have to agree, with Alley cat.

     

    I'm on 5Mb and it takes around 30 to 40 minutes to download in standard def.

     

    In fact I rented Fury on Saturday, went to play a round of Xbox, and when I came back 25 minutes later, it was nearly complete.

     

    Are you sure you have only 6Mb?

     

    What does http://www.speedtest.net/ say about your connection?


  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Feb 9, 2015 1:16 PM in response to Phil0124
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Feb 9, 2015 1:16 PM in response to Phil0124

    Phil0124 wrote:

     

    I have to agree, with Alley cat.

     

    I'm on 5Mb and it takes around 30 to 40 minutes to download in standard def.

     


    This is generally to start a 1080p movie rental of 90-100 minutes duration i.e. the time it takes to pre-buffer the movie for continuous playback.  Occasionally I get pauses but not often.

  • by Phil0124,

    Phil0124 Phil0124 Feb 9, 2015 1:26 PM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 7 (27,641 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 9, 2015 1:26 PM in response to Alley_Cat

    Was referring to the full download to my iPad.   i can usually start to play it when it gets to half way (10, 15 minutes) without any stops. but I like to wait until its closer to the end.

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Feb 9, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Phil0124
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Feb 9, 2015 1:50 PM in response to Phil0124

    Phil0124 wrote:

     

    Was referring to the full download to my iPad.   i can usually start to play it when it gets to half way (10, 15 minutes) without any stops. but I like to wait until its closer to the end.

    Sure - just distinguishing your SD vs my 1080p version.  Last time I checked SD rentals will play near instantaneously on AppleTV at 4-5 Mbps - the official recommendation (I'm sure you know)  is >2.5 Mbps.

     

    2.5 Mbps for SD

    6 Mbps for 720p HD

    8 Mbps for 1080 HD

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Feb 9, 2015 1:51 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Feb 9, 2015 1:51 PM in response to Kappy

    Kappy wrote:

     

    Your best bet is to move.

    Kappy will happily finance this

  • by Phil0124,

    Phil0124 Phil0124 Feb 9, 2015 1:57 PM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 7 (27,641 points)
    iPhone
    Feb 9, 2015 1:57 PM in response to Alley_Cat

    I use my iPad, and not to experienced with Apple Tv. But yeah it will start to play as soon as it starts the download. Though I as I said like to leave it until its almost finished.

     

    Unless of course there is something else using the bandwidth at thew time, like other heavy downloads, or other streaming. In which case it may take longer.

  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Feb 9, 2015 2:00 PM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 10 (271,328 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 9, 2015 2:00 PM in response to Alley_Cat

    Obviously, only for qualified customers. But, so far you guys haven't solved the problem of making his internet speed faster. My answer can at least get the ball rolling - so to speak.

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Feb 9, 2015 2:12 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Feb 9, 2015 2:12 PM in response to Kappy

    Kappy wrote:

     

    Obviously, only for qualified customers. But, so far you guys haven't solved the problem of making his internet speed faster. My answer can at least get the ball rolling - so to speak.

    The only real answer without moving would be to combine two or more connectons.

     

    http://www.wikihow.com/Combine-Two-Internet-Connections

  • by Tim2797,

    Tim2797 Tim2797 Feb 9, 2015 3:23 PM in response to Alley_Cat
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 9, 2015 3:23 PM in response to Alley_Cat

    TThank you

  • by mjdindc,

    mjdindc mjdindc Feb 10, 2015 6:21 PM in response to Tim2797
    Level 1 (14 points)
    Apple Music
    Feb 10, 2015 6:21 PM in response to Tim2797

    I have a 6 MB DSL connection and it is usually quite good on 720 HD.  A lot depends on if you are doing anything else on the network at the same time.  1080 does take 30-40 minutes.  The Apple TV usually starts out at 4-5 hours but it moves quickly.

  • by Alley_Cat,

    Alley_Cat Alley_Cat Feb 10, 2015 11:36 PM in response to Phil0124
    Level 6 (19,583 points)
    Feb 10, 2015 11:36 PM in response to Phil0124

    In general I have always preferred streaming to AppleTV from iTunes on the LAN once purchases are fully downloaded to iTunes - it just tends to be more reliable when the internet is not blazing fast.  Suspect I'd do the same on an iPad too.  Streaming services are all very well but it's a shame many don't offer a temporary storage option as otherwise we get penalised with lower quality streams.  Netflix is generally very good i find, but other services are much more variable.