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Level 1

10 points

Slow tv rental download

Anyone else? Just rented my first tv show for .99 Top Gear Season 14 show 1 1.76GB. Downloading on my very fast comcast 12/1mbs. Time to complete download?? 2 HOURS!!! I'm sorry but that is ridiculous.

Windows 7

Posted on Sep 2, 2010 9:31 PM

29 replies

Oct 14, 2010 11:28 PM in response to rshands

I had frustratingly slow performance with any download related video on my new Apple TV: movie & tv rentals, trailers, YouTube, you name it. I couldn't watch anything without starts and stops and slow buffering.

After troubleshooting everything I could think of with my network, I came across this thread suggesting a conflict between Apple's streaming servers and OpenDNS:

https://forums.opendns.com/comments.php?DiscussionID=7795

I switched the DNS settings in my router back to my ISP, and immediately download performance dramatically improved.. Trailers and YouTube now play instantly, and rentals are ready after several seconds.

fk23

Level 1

19 points

Oct 14, 2010 11:51 PM in response to Joe Golike

Slow performance on mine is solely with iTunes. Youtube is fine, Flickr loads fast, streaming from my PC is quick....just iTunes being, well, iTunesy.

PBarson

Level 1

0 points

Oct 15, 2010 7:24 AM in response to fk23

Thanks for all of the suggestions. Last night I tried changing DNS, filter options within my router, different channels that my router was using and still no improvement.
Then I changed the Netowrk Mode in my router to 'Wireless-G Only'. (It was previously set to 'Mixed', meaning b, g and n).
Amazingly this appears to have solved the issue, at least as far as YouTube, Netflix and movie previews which now all load and play instantly.
I shall be trying to rent a movie tonight and will post back to confirm whether this really has fixed the issue, at least for me.....

PBarson

Level 1

0 points

Oct 15, 2010 11:12 AM in response to PBarson

I can now confirm that for me at least switching the network mode in my router settings to Wireless-G Only has resolved all issues of slow downloads on the new Apple TV.
Netflix, YouTube, iTunes and movie rentals are all now super fast and start playing in 2 to 3 seconds.
Apple support are now aware of this issue and resolution with the Linksys WRT105N router and have passed all information onto the engineering department for further investigation.

I hope this helps at least some of you out with similar issues.

Oct 15, 2010 10:27 PM in response to Joe Golike

I concur, I was about to return my apple tv because of the slow downloads of rentals. I had no issue with netflix or podcast steaming just iTunes content. Called support and they had no solution. Then I read this thread and turned off open dns and went back to comcast dns server...voila speeds were dramatically faster. Went from 600k/sec to over 6mb/sec

Thanks dude!

Oct 18, 2010 2:59 PM in response to rshands

HI all,

I had a ton of issues for the last week, streaming on home network was fine, netflix fine, only Itunes Rentals.

Apple support were no help (apart from refunding rental fees).

Then I saw the entry on DNS in this thread. I was on google DNS, I changed it back to Comcast and boom it is fixed! Movies start almost immediately.

ArchiTAD

Level 1

9 points

Oct 18, 2010 3:27 PM in response to fk23

Will keep it simple. I experienced "all of the above" with all streaming content from my new ATV. Out of utter frustration, I finally chose to "Reset/Restore" (restored to factory settings) my ATV — worked perfectly — after about an hour of restarts and downloading the latest software! No more "Ready in XXXX minutes". HD rentals were available for viewing — immediately! Was something I thought I would try before sending it back to Apple and worked for me. Good luck.

Jan 2, 2011 9:53 PM in response to rshands

This is a very real problem Apple. Every aspect of ATV2 is blazing fast with the EXCEPTION of your own software. I am too often seeing 317 hours 22 minutes until download despite having the fastest cable offered in my area. My laptop reports 21MBps/8MBps wirelessly while my ATV2 is hardwired to the Airport.

How many pages does a discussion have to be to get your attention. Something is broken here.

Sserrano

Level 1

4 points

Jan 10, 2011 11:13 AM in response to PBarson

I have an Airport Express that I just hooked up for my mom and she was so excited to finally get to watch Netflix on her BRAND NEW HDTV TV she just bought. ATV is unusable. I have heard of some ideas here, such as switching/turning on/off some settings. I have no idea where to do that. Anyone offer specific examples? We have At&t internet, a new Imac, new ATV, and new airport express. Please help!

xtiansen

Level 1

0 points

Apr 2, 2011 1:04 AM in response to rshands

I had VERY slow downloads to 1st Gen Apple TV until I changed DNS servers back to 'automatic' - allocated by ISP. I had originally specified the public Google DNS servers 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 This fixed the problem immediately!

SkidMD

Level 1

0 points

Oct 26, 2011 8:28 PM in response to xtiansen

Me too. Slow downloads on 2 ATV2s - wireless and wired. Both were slow - painfully. Reset my router to use Comcast DNS and everything runs normally. OpenDNS - love you guys, but you appear to have a real problem here. Why not figure this out and prioritize a fix. We all aren't simply wrong here, are we? If so, why?

Jun 13, 2013 9:45 PM in response to rshands

If your on a Cox network that is rediculous -I applaud your choice in Apple products...A local company requires tons of customers

ninjadux

Level 1

0 points

Jan 21, 2014 5:39 PM in response to Joe Golike

You are my saviour!

amitd

Level 1

4 points

Mar 23, 2014 10:58 AM in response to PBarson

thanx for that suggestion. it really helped. i can now stream rented itunes videos flawlessly.

only i thing i dont understand is my atv is 802.11n, then how come it works when i selected wireless g only option.

secondly, i am scared to update my ios from 6.0 to 6.1 as may be the update does not work with my aztech hw550 router.

does any one suggest i should update to 6.1 and buy apple express or otherwise.....pl comment.

Slow tv rental download