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

Just tried to rent Inception, and it says it will take 14 hours. Went over to Netflix and watched district 9, and it started immediately. Very frustrating, although district 9 was pretty good. Had my heart set on inception though 😟

Well i'm still getting nowhere

Waited 8 hours to download a movie. Just went in to watch it and its decided that it has to load again for some reason, again ready to play in 8 hours

I would encourage any UK user to contact Watchdog and see if they can get any feedback from Apple since they are doing a whopping job of ignoring their customers individually

And please, its not my download speed or DNS settings or whatever, the product clearly does not work as advertised

This is the solution. AT2 doesn't have downloads, I went out of the movie and into TV and started searching for something free to play and a pop up menu came up that the movie was ready. Went into the movie again and it was giving the message "authorizing" which seemed to be going on too long, did the same thing went out to TV menu, came back, movie loaded and started playing. It was telling us 12 hour download time. I believe this is a software bug, nothing to do with ISP times.

To clarify, I was replying to a prior message where he said he played a download that seemed to make the movie load. So what worked was going out of the movie when it said 12 hours to download, into the TV movie to select something, the message the movie is ready came up in a pop up box. Went back, authorizing was doing the spinning wheel a bit too long or we were impatient, went back to TV menu, came back to movie and it loaded. So not ISP times or server problem, but a softerware bug IMO.

One consistent solution I have found is to power cycle the airport. I don't know if it's the airport or whether losing connection and reestablishing fixes the slowdown. But there is definitely a bug or software issue.

If you can, try to bypass the wireless by connecting the ATV2 directly to your cable modem via ethernet. If it works fine after doing so, then you know the problem is somewhere in the Wi-Fi. If not... software or ISP issue.

I bought an ATV2 for Christmas. So far, pretty happy although can be a bit temperamental at times. I've rented both SD and HD movies. Most have been playable within 30 seconds and no issues. A couple of times it had some downloading issues. A reboot worked once. Another time, going back to the main screen and then selecting the movie again resumed it where it left off.

Airplay mostly works, although sometimes the Macbook just drops off the menu till I reboot the ATV.

So, overall, quite happy with the device, though I hope they iron out the remaining bugs.

The Power Cycle option worked a treat....from a 38 minute wait time the movie loaded within seconds. Cheers!

have you unblocked your firewall? Apple tv needs to have port 3689 unblocked. If you have windows 7 heres how to do it (its worked for me - after hours of trying everything else!!):
Open a port in Windows Firewall

If Windows Firewall is blocking a program and you want to allow that program to communicate through the firewall, you can usually do that by selecting the program in the list of allowed programs (also called the exceptions list) in Windows Firewall. To learn how to do this, see Allow a program to communicate through Windows Firewall.

However, if the program isn't listed, you might need to open a port. For example, to play a multiplayer game with friends online, you might need to open a port for the game so that the firewall allows the game information to reach your computer. A port stays open all the time, so be sure to close ports that you don't need open anymore.

1.Open Windows Firewall by clicking the Start button , and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type firewall, and then click Windows Firewall.

2.In the left pane, click Advanced settings. If you're prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

3.In the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security dialog box, in the left pane, click Inbound Rules, and then, in the right pane, click New Rule.

4.Follow the instructions in the New Inbound Rule wizard.

If you’re having trouble allowing other computers to communicate with your computer through Windows Firewall, you can try using the Incoming Connections troubleshooter to automatically find and fix some common problems.

Open the Incoming Connections troubleshooter by clicking the Start button , and then clicking Control Panel. In the search box, type troubleshooter, and then click Troubleshooting. Click View all, and then click Incoming Connections.

For information about advanced firewall troubleshooting, see Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Troubleshooting Guide: Diagnostics and Tools and Troubleshooting Windows Firewall settings in Windows XP Service Pack 2 for advanced users.

Hi All,

*Solution for me:*

Those experiencing slow downloads or even stops/starts. Check that the following setting is not enabled: "SendData to Apple" under Settings-General.

If it is enabled or on then disable it and see if that resolves your download issue.

All the best,

Greg

Sadly, the only opinion I can add is to enforce the first.

This product is poor. I downloaded (and paid) for The Town (a week after it was available in my local DVD store), but I was determined to use my Apple TV. I chose the HD version. Allowing myself 3 hours to download / buffer, I sat to watch to find a variety of ranges between 18 hours and 28 hours before I could watch it. No joy. Next day it told me it was ready to go or I could watch later. I chose 'watch later'.

Two hours later I choose to watch now and bang, 16 hours before I could watch. *** - who invented this thing. For a moment I wondered had they finished editing the movie and did I have to wait for that. Rebooted DSL modem, no change. 7Mps data line, always worked for other movies perfectly.

So;

Support call to Apple first thing tomorrow, refund required (on the movie). Wonder how that'll turn out. If this isn't fixed, it's back to manual rentals. Sigh.

The speed is the first thing to check, is it 7mbps actual or advertised and is it consistent. Then there are things like dns, isp throttling etc that can also cause issue.

Did the power cycle...all what was downloaded before gone...back to sqr one...need to waut another 2 hrs....was very fond of apple, but its coming to a disaster...

Netflix: fast download and stream even in HD.
Apple: no stream while download, long wait before you can watch, lame.