Apple TV (2nd Gen) screensaver photo shuffle

I have this issue of ATV2 screensaver NOT pulling all photo from large iMac iPhoto library.

Yes. The latest update improved the screensaver in that it now picks random photos from across your whole library. BUT it still only selects a limited number, and over the period of 20 minutes we start to see repeats. I'd say it's only grabbing a couple of hundred at a time. This is frustrating, and proves it's still not selecting photos LIVE from your iphoto library. This was fine on ATV1 because it had more storage and could therefore store the whole library, but on ATV2 the limited storage means this method for caching photos locally is not the way to go.

Please apple.... make the ATV smart enough to live stream photos from the library, or at least give us an setup option to have the ATV2 update it's cache every XXX minutes.

Thanks Steve.

Well with the update I'm 50% happier than before at least. Any idea how long until the cache is purged and a new collection of photos is grabbed?

Does anyone know if the update on December 14,2010 to iOS 4.2.1 helps with the screensaver issue? I sure hope so.

Well, after the 12/14 update, my screensaver seemed to be stuck on the same 100 - 200 pictures. I went to my connected iMac picture settings and and reset the photo library (disconnect - reconnect) and all seems well again. (It reloaded the picture library.)

Good Luck!

I just got ATV2 and setup the screen saver to use my photo library. As with all the rest, I am very disappointed because the photos keep repeating. I have 5000 photos in my library and repeats should not happen. Frequently I even see photos repeat within 3 photos. One of the main reasons I got ATV2 was for the screen saver display on my TV. I've noticed that even though there are 5000 photos, only about 100 are used for the screen saver. I have noticed that sometimes when I exit from ATV2 and come back later, it appears to be creating a new group of ~100 to display (e.g. after reentering ATV2 from watching a DVD and go to the screen saver menu, I see a spinning wheel on the photos option. Then when the screen saver is activated, a new group of photos begin displaying). Even when the group of screen saver photos is updated manually (or occasionally automatically), there seems to be a core bunch of photos that shows up in every group. Why can't it randomly select photos from my entire library in real time instead of batches of 100 that are infrequently updated. This can't be that difficult to fix. If it is that difficult, then they should stop selling this as a feature. Has anyone figured out how to make this work where it pseudo-randomly selects from the entire library without repeats?

Same boat. This slideshow is the biggest feature for all the people who know nothing about computers. Grandmas and such. In my case my Grandma was so impressed for about 3 minutes and then it started repeating. I know what to add to make this work. I have my laptop on and itunes and iPhoto open. I get it. It doesn't work right. In my mind, this is the most basic function that Apple normally nails. I understand that it's not going to import my 3000 photos from the last year. It has 8gb built in that must have a size limit.
Additionally, I also have it set up to use pictures from Flikr. I have an AP search selected as the 100 photos. Somehow it grabs a few photos, then shows me pictures from last month. This is AP. It's updated all the time.
Seriously, fix this. Your making me look like and idiot.

I thought apple was this great company that listened to its customers?! My screensaver on my new apple tv is functioning just like everybody elses is here.....Not truly selecting photos in a random manner.
PLEASE FIX THIS!!!!!! It is VERY annoying!!!

Message was edited by: smitty8898

This worked for me! Some minor repition still on screen but it's picking from a much wider range of pics now 🙂

Add me to the list. have the same complaint. Pictures repeat a ton! I have 5500 photos in my library and yet i just counted 10 repeats in the last 50 photos. Worked much better in atv1

Apple please fix this! I talked my wife into the fact that I needed an ATV2.....and now the one feature she loved from ATV1 seems horrible. Bad repetetion of same photos....:)

PLEASE Software update this!

Add me to the list. Looks like its pulling 50-200 pictures a day and repeats them all day long.

Ditto. Pulls 50-100 pics from album of 6000 on my iMac. Shows them "randomly", then repeats the SAME pictures in the EXACT same order over and over.

What should happen: Randomly show ALL of 6000 pictures, and never in the same order. (That's the definition of random, right?)

FAIL.

I have the same problem of repeated photos. After about 10 minutes it's not even fun anymore.

Worse that this, sometimes it seems to actually run out of pictures to repeat; the screen just goes totally empty 😟

Please get this fixed apple, you're so much better than this.

Does anyone know if the photo file type matters? Some of my older ones are Gif.