Problem streaming HD Movies to Apple TV through home network

Just installed the 4.1.1 software update. Sadly it does not appear to fix this issue.

Just called Apple Support now to see if I could find out more. Ended up being escalated to a second level support person, and I gave him as many details as I could. I'm hoping that this issue can be passed on to the engineers and hopefully it will be resolved at some point.

I would recommend others do the same to build some awareness of the issue and escalate the priority. If you can, give details of what content works and doesn't. If you're in the US or Canada, Apple makes it very easy to schedule a call with tech suppot. Go to <https://expresslane.apple.com/GetproductgroupList.do> and set it up and they'll call you at the time you specify.

In my case, I'm running the ATV over a wireless network (airport express) as I can't do wired. My own content that I'm trying to stream is ~7200kbps. The support person had me download a free piece of HD content from the iTunes store to my laptop and try streaming it to the AppleTV. This worked fine. The bitrate of the iTunes Store content is ~4200kbps. So the difference in bitrate may be the reason.

Whatever the cause, I hope to see it fixed as I have a bunch of stuff I bought the ATV to be able to watch. The original 4.0 software worked, but ever since 4.1 my content has been cut off.

My husband and I purchased the Apple TV about a month ago. We rented an HD Movie from iTunes a few days ago. I could not load the movie on the Apple TV at all. So, I downloaded the movie on my computer, which took 2 hours! When we went to play the movie, the "load" icon just kept spinning and spinning with no text accompanying it. After several failed attempts to watch the movie, we gave up. It was a wasted lesson that cost us $4.99. I will not be purchasing any video from the iTunes store in the future.

I just purchased an Apple TV and set it up this week. I tried one Netflix show and gave up after 3 minutes when it kept pausing. But the worst thing is I can't even stream movies off my own Mac. I can get one to play but it has a low bitrate. I just got some home 8mm film converted into HD and I made a 1 minute clip of it. Could never get it to stream from my G5, but was able to get it to stream from my kids Mac mini. Hardly anything wants to stream from the G5. Wonder if its because the G5 is wired to a 100MB/s switch that is wired to the Apple Airport Extreme while the Mac mini is on wireless?

Anyway, I will keep working on this through the weekend. If I can't make any progress, I'm taking it back. I've always been leery about running everything through iTunes anyway. Had the Mac mini connected to the HDTV for a while and used Plex. Never had any issues streaming from the G5 at all. Of course, Plex wasn't using that crappy home sharing either. It was using standard stuff like CIFS to connect folders from one Mac to another.

Exactly the same problem here in Australia. Movies downloaded direct to ATV just want to keep loading for hours and hours and ............Very disappointed. Gave up on one movie that kept stopping and have 3 sitting there that I can't watch. Does anyone from Apple HQ read theses posts or is it just a sham to make people think they are listening to their customers?

I have just updated too and can't play any movie successfully either with Quicktime X or 7Pro. The problem is also occurring if I use VLC or MPEG Streamclip. The machine was perfect before upgrading to Snow Leopard. I deliberately held out as long as possible to upgrade (a year after release of Snow) Have searched high and low for a fix to no avail. Very disappointed with Apple that there has been no solution or dialogue about it. Crazy.

My brand-new AppleTV works fine for about 30 mins and then stalls, apparently re buffering when playing from Netflix. I see this is an oft-reported issue and a bunch of people have put significant effort into trying to characterize the problem.

I'm running 4.1.1.

Has anyone heard of a solution?
Does Apple have anything to say?
Should I take this hockey puck back to the store?

//mikster

If you have found this forum topic you may be currently pulling your hair out and ready to give up on your Apple TV. I was there and tried everything, anyone has ever, ever, ever suggested to deal with the incredible slowness of my 2nd gen Apple TV. Before you skip the box across the living room table you might want to consider the fix that I believe to be the root cause of my woes. If you have Direct TV and have the on-demand service you may noticed a small box called a broadband adapter connected to your router. It allows the DirectTV service to reach the net. I disconnected it and restarted my router and my AppleTV is now working like a charm. Has anyone experienced a similar problem and used this fix?

sdwoodfo, that is great that you solved your problem. Unfortunately, your situation is unrelated to the original topic of the thread (and of many others who have posted here too). This thread is supposed to be about problems streaming video from a computer to the 2nd gen ATV, and at least in my situation remains unsolved, leaving it useless for the main reason I purchased it.

Having exactly same problem. I can rent HD movies on itunes no problem, but when I try to stream movies from my MAC the apple TV just hangs and I can never get through a movie (SD or HD for that matter, but it's worse on HD).

Please Apple, give us a solution?

Ok, figured out some kind of a solution to problems with playing HD content thru ATV2 from your itunes library. This solution requires an iphone or ipod touch(what im using).

1) Download remote app for iphone thru ATV2 site found in apple's site and load it up.

2) Pick the HD video you want to watch WITH THE IPHONE REMOTE APP.

3) Hit play. It will start to play in itunes.

4) WITH THE IPHONE REMOTE APP hit the airplay button and choose your desired ATV2.

5) The video will pop up on the tv but still will not play. Here's the weird part.

6) WITH THE IPHONE APP, drag the progress ball, the one that displays the time of the video being played, all the way to the end (right) of the bar. It's at the top of the screen and smaller than usual. WITHOUT LIFTING YOUR FINGER, drag it back to the beginning (0:00). you will notice that as you do this the same thing happens on the tv and on the backstroke the buffer bar becomes filled.

7) Hit play and enjoy.

Tried this with one movie that worked before the latest update and then no more, and it played all the way thru except for one glitch where i leaned on my ipod, possibly disrupting the playback. anyway, after the movie is buffered all the way you can use the remote just as usual.

Hope this helps, and i hope even more a new update comes out that fixes this.

There is something going on with your network if using the Remote app requires you to drag the progress bar for it to play. That's also why you are having problems with it the regular way.

Using the Remote app, videos on my home network play immediately. I'm talking 2 seconds or less. Same for accessing my iTunes library the regular way from my Apple TV.

It's either your router settings, updates are needed, wireless interference, or the wireless signal is not strong enough for the Apple TV where it is located. Could be other things but there is definitely something wrong with your network if you are having that kind of problem with HD content.

If you have an Apple made router and are having problems, try increasing the multicast rate.

Many of us who are having this problem, including me, are hard wired between the computer and the router and, of course, to the ATV, using gigabit ethernet. And there was nothing "wrong" with the network until Apple upgraded to iOS 4. I will try tweaking the multicast rate on my router and see if I can get it working, but from my perspective this looks like an Apple bug.

I have been following this thread as I've been noticing this same problem. I've had EXTREMELY slow streaming from iTunes, but interestingly, no problems with NetFlix. Problem has occurred using both wireless and wired network connections across three different Apple TV's. I've noticed it last couple of weeks and it seemed to correlate with an AppleTV firmware update. But I finally seem to have solved it (at least for me).

I disabled the QOS options in my router just as something to try, and lo and behold, the video is now starting up instantly just like it used to. Counter-intuitive, I know - you'd think the QOS would give priority to the video, but maybe something about the way it's been streamed is causing it to get classified as low-priority traffic.

The router was a recent addition as well, so I'm not 100% sure of cause and effect. I'm not certain if the problem started with the addition of the router, the upgrading of the Apple TV firmware, or the combination of the two.

At any rate, it's something the rest of you could consider trying. Good luck!

Message was edited by: eriqthegeek

Here is my experience which leads me to believe this is a software issue and nothing to do with your network setup.

I tried downloading an HD tv rental and got the same several hour wait time as everyone else. I looked at some troubleshooting sites and went through some troubleshooting steps. Checked my network download speed which was around 13 Mbps. Still no resolution.

Getting impatient, I rented a non-HD show which, as expected, started playing with little delay. Just out of curiosity, I paused the non-HD episode, went back to the HD episode and it started playing immediately.

Maybe it's a bug in the software in which the AppleTV doesn't recognize when an HD rental is ready to stream.

Had some problems with HD movies in particular but now solved using the TC's 5GHz 11n has largely fixed the problem.

The only other time I get it now is if the server imac is ripping and encoding a DVD