HD rentals constantly stuttering every few seconds

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Level 1

126 points

HD rentals constantly stuttering every few seconds

i have only had my Apple TV for a couple of weeks and have been very happy. My first HD rental (I am Legend) played perfectly. I rented two more HD movies, and these stutter constantly and consistently, every 10 seconds or so. It's like a small pause then it picks back up - audio is fine. These are the only files stored on the 160gb hd (i stream the rest of my content from upstairs Itunes). I tested streaming multiple files and they played fine. So it seems to me like i have download problems with these rental files...i filed problem reports on both purchases but don't know how easy/difficult it is to get Itunes support to respond.

Is this normal for HD rentals? I was going to cancel netflix until this happened....

Message was edited by: oleus

Message was edited by: oleus

PowerMac G5 dual 2ghz//4gb ram, Mac OS X (10.5.2), bluetooth FCP keyboard/mighty mouse/isight/ipod 80gb video/1TB audio server

Posted on Jun 29, 2008 8:55 AM

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Answer 1

Jun 29, 2008 9:00 AM in response to oleus

Have you tried restarting (not restoring) the tv.

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Answer 2

oleus Author

Level 1

126 points

Jun 29, 2008 9:03 AM in response to Winston Churchill

i have not, in fact i have found it strange that there is no "off" button (but that's besides the point). should i just unplug it?

i figured streaming content would suffer from this kind of problem more than downloaded content.

anyway i'll try restarting and see what happens and report it here.

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Answer 3

Jun 29, 2008 9:11 AM in response to oleus

You can restart it from the remote.

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Answer 4

oleus Author

Level 1

126 points

Jun 29, 2008 9:25 AM in response to Winston Churchill

Winston- resetting it seems to have fixed the problem, but i had to unplug the unit to get anything to happen - when i went to access AppleTV it was frozen on a screen with the silver apple icon and no remote actions could get it to do anything, it was frozen.

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Answer 5

Jun 29, 2008 1:03 PM in response to oleus

Don't forget the tv is much closer to a computer than your average media device and of course computers do sometimes freeze, even  ones.

There are various stages of resetting the tv if a problem occurs.

-Simple restart (can usually be done via the remote, but sometimes it may do it itself).
-Shut down (pulling the plug)
-Reset SMU (pull ALL cables and leave for 30 seconds)
-Restore.

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Answer 6

Sep 20, 2008 11:15 PM in response to oleus

I have a similar issue. I have found the HD rentals stutter every 10-15 minutes but audio continues. I was going to cancel Netflix as well but have now held off. The HD rental is fully downloaded so it's clearly a CPU issue. I'm surprised there are so few posts on this problem. I'd love to find a quick fix.

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Answer 7

gooober

Level 1

47 points

Sep 21, 2008 6:01 AM in response to Mr. Tiny Evil

I would call Apple support and see what they say.

In the past, I have also had issues with studdering and freezes on the screen.

The problems went away for me when I turned off 'syncing'.

Also, another factor to consider here is iTunes. Sometimes it is necessary to restart iTunes on the computer which contains your master library that the AppleTV connects to.

Mark

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Answer 8

Sep 21, 2008 7:48 AM in response to Mr. Tiny Evil

Welcome to the  Discussion Forums.

The HD rental is fully downloaded so it's clearly a CPU issue.

Not necessarily, in fact I tend to look at other possibilities first. Over full HDD's, network interference and HDMI issues can cause the tv to act erratically.

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