Good news from 2.01 update was that it was to include Genres under the My Movies menu.
Problem is that each time you move down to select a new genre it freezes. For some items it is about 5secs but for others 10-15secs.
Is this a problem experienced by all, or an isolated case. I have over 300 movies and TV shows in library and streaming over 802.11n. Everything else has speedy menus, just Genres for Movies!
Message was edited by: mpdajo
Power Mac G5, Macbook Pro, Macbook, Apple TVs,
Mac OS X (10.5.2)
Extremely glad that I decided to wait before downgrading further from 2.0 to 2.0.1. Why is it so difficult to release bug-free software for a platform as closed as the aTV???
Same issue here. The signal drops every 15-25 minutes. If I go to Settings>Network on the Apple TV it shows that it's not connected to the wireless network. I Configure Wireless Network (basically just reinsert the password for the wireless network) and it reconnects, only to drop off again shortly thereafter. It's very frustrating. All of this since updating the AppleTV to the 2.01 update. Prior to that it worked flawlessly. I'm streaming from my Mac Pro over AE 802.11n. Need a fix from Apple- I really don't want to re-engineer my entire setup just to link my AppleTV via ethernet to iTunes!
but you know that the work around if you are using 5 Ghz with wide channels is to turn wide channels off or to go to 2.4GHz right?
i haven't seen anyone that has gone to these setting and not gotten their appleTV working... ask yourself if it's better to have a slightly slower wireless connection until this gets resolved or to have a $230 brick attached to your TV?
it should reduce the speed... i'm thinking there should be little to no advantage in speed with 2.4GHz with out the wide channels enabled. but there is still the advantage of less potential interference with other wireless devices (cordless phones, digital baby monitors, bluetooth devices, other wireless networks near by, leaky microwave ovens etc..)
the range should change with wide channels on or off but 2.4GHz has greater range than 5GHz... if you don't have an interference problem 2.4GHz is probably the better solution... i live in an appartment with tonnes of other wireless network around me and don't have to span a big distance so i'm using 5GHz with wide channels off
However 2.4 has better penetration through walls. So if I lose the speed am I better going back to 2.4.
I bought 5.8ghz phones before we had 'n' to reduce the 2.4 interference. Currently have a 2.4ghz 'g' network and a 5GHz 'n' in a 2 storey home. Office is in middle of house upstairs with both wireless routers. Hopefully Apple rollout 2.02 soon, addressing this Wifi shmozzle and also the genre browsing.
The "genre" browsing is a nice new feature since i have tons of cartoons for my children... but what a shame that it's so slow... almost unusable ! I agree 100% with the previous post, how is it possible to launch revision software that are not fully usable on a closed platform like the @TV ?
I am having the same problem and my ATV is hardwired to a 100mb switch - so its not the wifi....watched a movie yesterday morning with my son, no problem, later in the day upgraded ATV to v2.01 and iTunes to 7.6.2 and could only play the to ~30movies in MY MOVIES, no others..also doesnt sync.
Just reset ATV to default v2.0 (dont know how to get back to v1.1) and now NO sync whatsoever and no video, audio or photo playback.... Next step I think is to remove itunes 7.6.2 and reload earlier version from Hippo (seen on other forum talking about huge issues with 7.6.2) and starting again, hopefully will not wipe out the clipart for my movies or music.
In order to increase dramatically the speed of the ATV when browsing your movies, especially when you specify a genre in the file info to classify your movies (e.g. : Walt Disney, Action, Drama, etc..), you have, inside iTunes, to include a picture file in the artwork section of each movie file...
I found this trick when considering the way iTunes and ATV work to show a thumbnail by default for a video file.
In fact, the software take a picture at about 8 second from the beginning of the file... and you can change this default thumbnail by viewing the movie in iTunes, pausing the movie on the desired frame, right-clicking on the image and choosing "set poster frame" in the menu...
Considering that, i thought this process could be very heavy for the ATV because it has to scan each file to pick a frame at a specific time in order to build the cover flow effect on the left.
So i tried to use the artwork section of the file info (inside in iTunes) and select a image file so that, maybe the ATV would not scan the movie files anymore.
Actually, i opened each mp4 file of my library with Quick Time, paused the movie on the frame i wanted for illustration, export this frame as a picture, opened this "pict" file with pixelmator (for e.g.) in order to crop it as square so that, at the end, all the thumbnails have the same size 😉 (by default the thumbnails have the aspect ration of the movie), saved the picture as "jpeg" file and, finally, drag and drop each file in the artwork box ...
NB : that work can be accelerated if you do each step thoroughly before doing the next one, and use the "next" button in the "info box"...
After that i synchronized the movie section of my apple TV in iTunes ... (Note that iTunes overwrites the files... so it may take some time)
WHAT IS THE RESULT ?
My ATV is far more responsive !
There is absolutely no lag anymore when browsing the entire list of my movies ...
and the latency when browsing by genre (i mean the lag time before being able to switch down to the next genre) dropped to 2-3 seconds max ... before it was more than 10, and sometimes even more, and the screen turned to black...
Good idea for those who do not adopt this practice already, however in my case this does not effect the problem with poor performance when browsing Genres.
Every movie and TV show in library has a custom artwork associated with the file. I typically save the movie poster in the artwork. I still get delays in selecting Genres between 5 and 15 seconds (even when a particular genre has as little as 3 items)
Thanks for welcomed advice, I am sure it will speed up general browsing for many.
Did not notice any change, as this is how I have always maintained my library.
FYI - 148 Movies in 15 Genres.
Noticed that I even have a genre with one item (Documentary) and that also takes time to display.
Primarily to be a maintenance update, however has introduced new bugs!!
Also new functionality:
- New Genres Entry
- Sync podcasts to iTunes
- Plus for Progress
- Skip when shuffling
