Just connected the new ATV(2), and watched a few free TV shows...I'm noticing some slight playback stutter (video only) - seems more like an encoding issue than streaming - wired connection, and had no pauses or audio stutters.
It presents sort of like dropped or missing video frames...Curious if any others are noticing this. I'm watching on a projection system (missing the 1080!) so perhaps this issue is exaggerated for me, but it's clearly there...
Sorry, but you DO see this "kind of crap" on Windows machines as well. Streaming is not yet an exact science with buffering issues, bandwidth traffic, etc playing into the experience. Other streaming boxes ( I also have a Roku ) stutter occasionally as well. Maybe when the newly earmarked white bandwidth
( Bandwidth freed up when TVs shifted from analog to digital ) gets added for internet use we'll see some improvement with streaming.
Brrr, you're statements are not relevant to this discussion, as these issues are not
streaming issues, but rather
playback issues. The issues are present after the movie has completely "downloaded" to the Apple TV's built-in storage buffer, at which point the Apple TV is no longer
streaming anything.
BigCountry10, thank you for adding a new data point here in that you are
not seeing any issues on your iPad. This gives me hope that Apple can fix the problem via firmware. My main concern was that perhaps the 256MB of RAM was insufficient, but the iPad also only has 256MB of RAM.
I have seen it on at least two videos. Mad Men from last night, and the Pilot of the TV show Castle. Mad Men was a purchase, Castle was a rental. Both were physically purchased/rented on my quad core iMac i7 (I point this out to note that I probably have the horsepower to stream from the Mac) and both files physically are housed on the iMac. I accessed the playback via the Computers menu on the ATV2. On both, there is a slight stutter from a droppped frame or two every minute or two, sometimes there will be two stutters in a row. Audio seems unaffected.
I am connected my ATV via ethernet and I am running gigabyte ethernet connected to a 25MB/sec cable modem.
I don't see this so far in files which are no housed on my Mac, ie: files streamed directly from the Net. Could this be a streaming issue from local files and not from the cloud?
Nat, rebooting (or, as Apple calls it, resetting) the Apple TV did nothing for me. I still have the stutter issues.
BobPenn, I don't believe it's network related, because if you play your show/movie, then pause it, then wait a while, the entire show/movie will eventually be downloaded in full to the Apple TV's on-board storage buffer (8GB). The first time you try to play a movie/show, the status bar should be mostly gray. You'll see that a small part of the bar at the beginning is white (that's the part that's been buffered). If you wait a while, eventually it will all be white. So, at that point, it should no longer be "streaming" anything, which should take network issues (or the capabilities of your iTunes computer) out of the equation.
FWIW, I did some more testing and I am able to see the issue even when my movie is not fully buffered, however it does appear that the issue is more pronounced/frequent when it has been fully buffered. This seems counterintuitive, of course. The theory that the Apple TV is doing something in the background is a possibility, but if that's the case, it's also doing this while streaming a not-fully-buffered movie/show. I have a feeling that the problem is something else. I'd like for this problem to be fixed ASAP, because streaming my own content is my main need for this box, and if it can't do it perfectly smoothly it's going to have to go back. I'm hopeful that Apple will fix this, but not overly optimistic that they'll be fixing it within 30 days.
I saw a few stutters tonight while it was still buffering. Much more common when it's fully buffered. Unplugging and replugging the device in doesn't resolve the issue. I'm back to my atv v1 until this (and hopefully the folder issues) are fixed in a future update. Hopefully the atv won't burst into flames before that happens.
Disagree, hipnetic. My comments are relevant to the discussion. Have you not ever observed the loading bar popping up during a movie. If it's all playback and buffering where does the loading bar come in ?
Ideally, yes, the buffer would stay ahead of playback, but sometimes this is not the case. When playback is "chomping on the heels" of the buffer, that's when you get a lot of stutter. If playback catches the buffer you get the loading bar. The incoming stream is not done until the movie is fully downloaded and until that path is complete the factors I mentioned before may be a factor.
Besides, my comments were in response to an earlier poster who seemed to think PCs were exempt from streaming issues. Sheesh!
Please notice also that the initial posters in this thread did not say they experienced stutter after the movie was fully buffered. Some people, like myself, begin watching when the partially loaded buffer deems "safe" to begin playback and that's when I've encountered stuttering issues. Just trying to be helpful, not longing for correction.
I experienced this problem with my first gen ATv whilst many / most others did not. I believe it is down to the TVs we are using. Note that I am not just referring to the HDMI implementation as I still had issues when testing the component connection as well.
I am using a 52" Series 5 Samsung plasma tv.
I am guessing that it is something to do with the frame rate of the video and the conversion by the tv to its native setting.
i also got the minor stutters both on handbrake encoded movies and on itunes rented hd movies.
it stutters both before and after the movie is completely buffered.
on my old apple tv everything worked flawlessly.
come on apple,
newer hardware = more stutters??
Brrr, it wasn't my intention to offend, but I believe that there are already one or more other threads related to what you're talking about. If you "catch up" to the end of a partially buffered movie, it will pause. What we're talking about here is a much less noticeable stutter/judder/dropped frame that happens every several seconds, even when you're nowhere near the end of the buffer (and, in fact, a few of us have confirmed that it's more prevalent when the movie has
fully loaded to the buffer). I think it's important to keep this thread specific to that particular problem.
The sync rate idea is a possibility. The Apple TV sends a 720p @ 60Hz signal, I believe, so 24fps content may not be getting perfectly converted to 60Hz. But I don't think that's what it is, simply because I
have been able to play my test video clip successfully (i.e., perfectly smoothly) when I've done a test where I've loaded a couple of different movies into the buffer, then started my test movie again (so that the previous instance of it has been completely cleared from the buffer).
