Minor Video Stutter

"I encode with 720 by 480" thats doesn't solve anything the problem doesn't exist at that resolution.

"EchoAusio, this is exactly the answer I am looking for too. I think most here are videophiles because while I see the stutter, others I have shown do not. So, it's hard to detect and so Apple may not be super quick to fix it. And I do hope it's fixable and not a product flaw. "

Everyone has this issue the people who don't see it are either blind of Apple Fanboys "Apple does no wrong"

Apple have made a dud device, they should refund all our money.

This is a poor excuse for a device.

It's full of so many issues.

Whats happened to Apples Quality Control ? They didn't even test this machine.

I agree with echoaussie in that something seems to have gone amiss with Apples QA these days. I bought an iphone4 which did the 5-1 bars thing which I cant believe they didn't spot now this with the atv2. I think they are under so much pressure to get things out, last minute problems are not delaying the launch if they think they can fix it in firmware. Notice the new macbook air. Its already had a software update to rectify some freezing problem and its only been out a few days. Pity they cant do the same with the atv2 though I suspect it is down the pecking order.

Although they dont say it, I think Apple have become fixated with their share price. They need to get back to producing quality products. Thats two things that I have bought recently that dont work properly. It would help if Apple support checked and replied to whats in these forums occasionally like other companies do with their forums who value their customers and dont take them for granted.

After talking for the last 2 days with apple support about this, I have been told that I need to bring my ATV2 in to an 'authorized apple repair center' to take a look at it on an 'approved HDMI capable' HDTV.

The onus has been placed on me to prove my TV is not to blame.

Just curious, what TV does everyone have?

I have a Panasonic tcp42x1.

Samsung Series 8 3D TV 55"

Apple Support called me yesterday and asked whether they could send me another Apple TV 2 to trade out with mine. They wanted mine in their labs to investigate the stuttering issue.

I told them, "sure." So another one is arriving via FedEx and I will send them the one which stutters.

They are taking is seriously enough to do this.

Samsung Series 5 32 inch LCD

Interesting that Apple are requesting an ATV2 which may suggest that they are unable to replicate the issue with there own devices. Or that the right handed QA support staff at apple are also visually challenged.

I have a Samsung series 5 LE40

I would HATE to be a tester given this bug. It's intermittent; you can go half an hour or more before you start seeing the issue. It's quick; if you blink you can miss the drop and it will be another 10 mins before it happens again. It's non-reproducible; if the movie skips and you rewind it, it will not skip again at the same spot.

But it is widespread. I have 3 atvs and they all express the error. On a sharp 32" 720p, A vizio 36" 720p, and a Samsung 1080p.

On the other hand, the tester is gonna get to get paid for watching a lot of TV and Movies so I guess it all balances out.

I have a Samsung 50" HLS5086 1080p DLP set. However, I seriously doubt this is a problem with our TV sets. While disabling some advanced TV features has "reduced" the stuttering for some users, the fact remains that the first generation ATV doesn't have this issue... all other factors the same. That alone should be convincing enough.

I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, but I know that it's customary for Apple to use different internal components for their products, ie. manufacturer of hard drives, ram, cabling, etc... can vary for the same identical model. We do know that the stutter is most evident once the buffer is full. I'm wondering if maybe a certain manufacturer of the FLASH chip is the culprit. It's possible that not all ATVs were manufactured with the same flash. This would help to explain why some are not having this problem (excluding those that may actually have it but just don't see it).

Are you positive about this? From my understanding, Apple almost exclusively uses Samsung memory and the A4 processor is definitely fabbed by Samsung. The memory and the CPU are usually the two things Apple doesn't stray away from very often, but when they do it usually occurs in the next gen product. I dbout the issue we are seeing is so much a hardware problem as it is software.

Although the hardware and the software are not entirely new, this is still the first generation hardware and software combination for this product. That being said, software bugs are bound to come out of the woodwork and us early adopters (face it, we are such an animal) do get bitten by them. I'm confidant Apple will squash these bugs in a firmware update, but until then we are kind of stuck with them until that happens. We just got to give Apple time to come up with a stable fix that will get the job done. As you said, there could be some changes that might be different between our Apple TV's, but I doubt the differences are any more major than what source they got a cable from. As the system administrator from a former ISP I worked at put it.. Never buy a .0 product of anything. It doesn't matter if the Apple TV is basically an iPad with out a screen and that the software is iOS 4.1.. This is still new and it really is a .0 right now.

I have no proof that the manufacturer of flash inside the ATV2 may differ throughout the production run. It's just a hypothesis. I agree this is a software bug as well. It's too bad ATV is still Apple's "hobby". If it had the popularity of the iPhone or iPad this would have been resolved by now.

My ATV2 unit seems to stutter when I am streaming from my itunes library when it is done buffering the file. It only seems to do it for movies, not TV shows. Maybe the size of the file matters? I have a Gsafe external drive, 2.4 iMac and a 37" Viewsonic TV. I can watch the same movie on my iMac without any stuttering issues.

I have restarted the unit, the software is up to day, I have turned off the "send to apple". I have not bought a movie yet, because I don't want to waste the money and be frustrated.

Anyways I APPLE is suppose to call me later today. I'll post what the outcome was

Message was edited by: passmoregas

My experience is that the stutter occurs in a very minor way throughout the buffering process, but is certainly at it's worst once the movie is fully buffered. I'm now convinced that fundamentally this has nothing to do with the various de-interlacing and frequency refresh options on different monitors, although I'm sure the issue is confused by these. The fact that the frame drops and jumps occur at different (i.e. not repeatable) points in the action when a given section is replayed suggests to me that the problem originates on the Apple TV side. I don't think it's an encoding issue either, as the reports are unanimous that ATV1 has no problem with the same files. My hunch is it's not a hardware issue and can probably be addressed in a firmware update, but I have nothing but instinct on which to base that assumption.

I have been in regular contact with UK support over this issue, and I'm awaiting a definitive response which I'm told will be forthcoming next week. To be honest, I'll be very surprised if that turns out to be the case - the engineers seem to be having a problem zeroing in on this issue, so I think it's likely to go on a bit longer than another week.

I've been having this problem. The first one I got seems to work fine (attached to a Samsung 26" LCD), but the second one has this stuttering issue (it is attached to a Samsung 42" Plasma).

I've actually switched them over, and they both work fine with the 26" LCD, and both stutter with the plasma. The content is encoded using Handbrake on the universal setting. They play fine on the iMac, MB and iPhone4 that I have.

If I get the chance I'll have another look tonight, and try them both on a Hitachi LCD.

I'm experiencing more of a slow down in the picture then a stutter. Audio is just fine. I am pretty new to Apple TV & only have a select few films in my library, but they all have the same problem. Haven't rented a film yet as i'm dubious of how it will react.

My AppleTV is hardwired through my router & i never experienced any streaming issues from Xbox. And my TV is a Samsung 40"