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

I don't see any improvement. It took over 10 hrs. to download an HD movie. I went to bed!

I'm suffering the same problem. Can no longer rent films and play them minutes later...takes hours!

Yep, me too. Mr technology, trying to impress my girlfriend with my cool stuff... UNTIL THE MOVIE STOPPED RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE!! Didn't have to double check to make sure the entire movie was downloaded before, ***!!! Thanks Apple. Has anyone found any answers yet, its now 5/10?

I have had numerous conversations with tech and not been able to solve the slow download problem. If you want to watch a program you have just purchased you may be able to within a minute or 2 or it may take more than an hour. It appears arbitrary. My broadband speed is typically 11-14 mb and I check it when the Apple TV is slow. No apparent connection. All software up to date. Will ATV always be the stepchild? Isn't video download profitable-yeah that's rhetorical with the price of HD movies and shows as high as Apple charges, you would think that they would include instant gratification or something close to it.

This issue is really destroying one of the reasons for buying ATV. HD movies/tv programmes take many hours to download, so the idea of spontaneously deciding 'let's watch a movie' is out of the question.... for example I've been waiting well over an hour for the current movie to download but it's still only at 19% and it says 'ready to play in 2 hours'!! We'll all be fast asleep by then. This means if you want to watch an HD movie you have to plan to do so at least 3 hours before you want to watch it. Far from ideal. A speed test indicates that the broadband is over 3 Mb/s (that's with ATV and another computer online as well)... surely the movie download must be able to run faster than it is currently?

Same issue here. Apple TV with 3.02 software, HD rental download speed is TERRIBLE. I have a very fast Comcast connection and all other downloads on all other devices work fine. Seems something wrong with new software. My HD rentals worked fine before.

its happening to us too 😟 we have been renting about 1 (sometimes 2) movies a day for the past two months. we have noticed the slowness on the past 3. rebooting everything seems to do nothing mostly but sometimes something does seem to kick loose eventually.

tonight's 2 hour estimate for shutter island may force us to cut our losses next time. i'm feeling hyper enough to stay up this time, but next time we will probably rent from another source / service despite the disadvantage of standing outside of Walgreens at a red-box or paying more for a store rental (only one left is Blockbuster), its better than not watching it when you want to.

very disappointing as i have been a strong advocate of the Apple TV rental solution since hearing that our local Movie Gallery stores are going out of business.

Message was edited by: pocket8077

Message was edited by: pocket8077

having the same issue tonight. It is SUPER ANNOYING. It used to take minutes to begin watching. Now, it is taking hours. So much for Apple TV, right ?!?! I had such high hopes!

I have had my ATV for a couple of years now and just about one month ago started experiencing the issue of EXTREMELY slow downloads. It's gotten to the point where I don't know that I will even bother trying to rent from iTunes, but rather go to the local Redbox. Is there a 'fix' to this issue? Have we determined if it is a server issue or an issue with the latest software version?

I am currently on 3.0.2 and using a Time Capsule as my wireless router on ATT DSL connection.

Having same issue here in Indianapolis. Long time ATV user and have noted since this spring intermittent issues with download speeds. Just this past 2 days have had 2 rentals indicate it would take 1 -2 days to download!! Then after one did download, 2 days later when I launched it to play it told me it was expired despite the home screen saying 27 days left to view.

While this is happening, the rest of my internet connectivity for all other devices is fine with very fast downloads using SpeedTest.

I am convinced this is on ATC server side of iTunes. How do we get help from Apple?
I've sent 2 messages to customer support without any response.

Indeed! This is getting quite ridiculous. My dl speeds here in Raleigh are lightening fast. I download content as fast (if not faster) than anyone I know (I reply upon large volumes of data to be both uploaded and downloaded to make a living so please understand, that means you can trust me that this is not on my end). That very pricey Apple TV that I was once so much on love with (had it for almost 3 years now) has been an operation in futility when it comes to downloading movies from iTunes since late winter of '10. Right now, we have been waiting for over 3 #&%$'ing hours to download a movie and we are at a mere 33% (we kept watching and it would freeze because the dl caught up with the movie). The main reason that I ever wanted an ATV was to rent movies and now you are dropping the ball. This has been happening on every movie we watch. Come on - I can do this off of Direct TV for crying out loud. Seriously, I am giving up on you and after all the iPhone 4 fiasco (which I patiently wait until you stop dancing with the ridiculous excuse of a provider called ATT&T), it starting to look like 2010 is the year in which it is all going to catch up with you. And guys, this is coming from someone who adores you. But now, I am frustrated because you are wasting my time and my money at this point. Get it together... apply a fix!!

I was really excited when the new Apple TV came out... I have had mine for 1 week. After this 1st rental and it's been downloading since 10pm and it's now 6am... I'm close to throwing this hockey puck in the lake behind my house!! I am running on a business class DSL service with excellent throughput. Plus I waited till later at night to do the download, yet it is still horrible!!!

The other drawback is that the device does not have it's own built-in in version or variation of iTunes. I have over 400 movies that I converted from DVD to MP4 ( I own a Sony 400 DVD Jukebox), and the MP4 movies are on a multiple-teribyte NAS drive on my network connected to an iTunes library. Unfortunately the Apple TV requires my iMac or MacBook Pro be up and running iTunes under HomeShare, and uses my Mac to access the freestanding NAS drive... I am using my Macs all the time to test software etc... I don't want them being wasted as a simple media server...

Steve

Also have the issue. Very excitedly got my AppleTV on Monday finally got around to renting a movie about an hour ago and it's giving me nothing less than about 180-190 minutes to download an SD movie. VERY ANNOYING. I can only hope it's because Saturday night is peak time, but this isn't on. I could have an HD copy off Pirate Bay in a fraction of that time - sort it out.

Some issue here in Australia, with an Apple TV 2 (the rent only one). It finally came up after 3 hours or so last night, was too late to watch by then, went to bed, started to watch again today and it's going to be another hour or so to start again. Doesn't it even download it!!??!?!

In Australia - it's only good for movies.

And so therefore - not so good.

This was my first movie - a useless experience. Might as well chuck the thing.

This download rental is a rip! It is the 2nd time I have tried. First time 4 hours. This time I have been waiting 6 hours and it shows only halfway! I am trying to download Prince of persia for my kids.
How do I get a refund and why are they advertising something they can deliver!
HELP!!