Apple TV taking a long time to download an iTunes Store movie rental

We experienced a 10-14 hrs wait for download this evening.
We cut the power to the AppleTV box - and when it came back on - film started instantly.

Hope that solves your problem too.

Just my two cents, but I don't think the issue is with Apple's services. There seems to be quirks with the Apple TV itself. I never had issues with my Apple TV. Movies streamed well, until today. I haven't used it in a while, so not sure if it was the iOS software update I just did or recent switching of my modem by AT&T. Tried several things and was ready to give up, download times for HD said 34 hours. Then I went into the menu and chose the Reset option to set back to factory defaults. I reconnected to my wireless network and re-entered my apple id. Went to my rental and it started almost right away.

I was having the same problem. I was waiting forever for the movie I rented (Hunger Games) to download. I restarted the ATV, and as soon as I hit Play my movie began to play right away. Maybe just coincidence, but it worked for me.

I don't have issue with movie starting. It does so ASAP. My problem is on 3 occasions, the third one tonight, the ATV gets flipped off the movie and once that happens you are screwed. I personally cannot get it to play again. It says "you have already purchased, go to a Settings, iTunes Store and then Check for a Rentals". It grinds for hours and inget fed up and go to friggin bed. This is awful. From no on I rent with my cable company because if you somehow stop the movie, at least they are smart enough to gave play button where the rent me button used to be. Give me Roku.

My Apple TV was fine until the last few days, full HD films would play within seconds, now even on lowest res. waiting time is 2 hours, my Netflix seems to load fastest in SD, but iTunes movies and box sets, I don't watch now due to loading time.

jens glindorf, thank you very much! I was experiencing the exact same problem, cut the power (per your suggestion) and voila! Streamed beautifully without a hiccup right after it rebooted.

Had that same problem awhile back. Solution was to do a full restore via iTunes by hooking it up to my computer with a USB cable. A little time consuming but did the trick.

It is funny, using the Netflix or the YouTube app on the ATV works fine but it does not as well with rental or purchased movies from iTunes. Sometimes, I have to download a movie directly on my iPad and then airplay it to the ATV.

It is a shame that we have to wait about an hour to watch a movie. I have a nice connection and I hope the next firmware update allows you to play instantly without "save on buffer before play".

AppleTv rentals are fixed size whereas Netflix is rate adaptive reducing quality as a trade-off for near instant starts on slower connections.

It's nearly 2016 and Apple TV still takes hours t prepare a movie for viewing! This is astonishing.

I just spoke with Apple support.

They told me when you have Two-Factor_Authentication (TFA) activated, signing into the apple tv with your AppleID skips a step in the login and authentication proces. He advised me to test this and disable the TFA and rent or purchase an item on the ATV4. After reseting my ATV4 to Factory default and setup and login with the TFA disabled I no longer had issues purchasing & renting content.

According to the support desk the TVOS 9.1.1 (13U717) skips the step where the device is getting authentication for purchases. It looks all worked fine when logging in but it missed the SMS/verification code step for allowing your ATV4 to make purchases on the iTunes or App store.

Hope this helps and explains the issue, now waiting for a fix as I feel more secure with the TFA enabled.

This is not a network speed issue or router issue. This is an APPLE issue. Apple's servers cache movies for distribution. If demand exceeds the cache then speed suffers. When you get a message saying hours and hours to download, go rent something on the top featured list but choose something that it towards the end. I bet your movie will start right up.

Apple TV tells me 'you have 28 days to watch this movie' - is that because it will take 28 days to load the ******* content???? I reduced my resolution to 720, but it STILL TAKES OVER AN HOUR TO LOAD THE MOVIE!!!!! Why can I watch a film on Netflix (at a fraction of the cost) IMMEDIATELY and it takes SOOOOOOOO LONG to watch a movie via Apple tv????

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Well my iTunes movies load just as fast as my netflix movies. That being said, iTunes movies are non compressed video whereas Netflix will compress the data depending on the user connection. It sounds like this issue is related more to the local network you connect to or the bandwidth for your ISP connection.