Latency on streaming from Airport USD Harddrive to ATV2

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Latency on streaming from Airport USD Harddrive to ATV2

I have a USB Drive which is connected to my Airport Extreme which hold plenty of video.
When I try to stream video from this drive to my ATV2 I have to wait for a very long time. I am assuming the streaming happens as: USBDisk->AEX-wireless->MacBook-wireless->AEX->ATV2 rather than USBDisk->AEX-wireless->ATV2. Any suggestions?
I don't want to transfer my video files to my macbook drive as I don't have enough space.
Any help?

Macbook, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Oct 6, 2010 3:14 PM

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Answer 1

HeyJP

Level 4

2,400 points

Oct 6, 2010 5:51 PM in response to aoztovi

AOZ,

Ooooh. Interesting question. I think you are right on the flow. But, the AEX is pretty good about managing multiple streams. You might try taking a video you created or ripped yourself and compress it to a relatively low bandwidth, like 5 Mbps, put it on your USBdrive and try that.

I assume your videos play nicely on your Macbook over the wireless? Also does your ATV2 work well with NetFlix, YouTube and Apple Trailers?

Jim

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Answer 2

aoztovi Author

Level 1

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Oct 7, 2010 2:08 PM in response to HeyJP

The streaming quality of my ATV2 is great. 720p content starts within seconds with no hiccups. My broadband connection at home has a 20mbit downstream speed. So I have no problem with Internet content. But when it comes to internal network content, such as USB drive connected to my AEX, the performance is pathetic, which is killing me. Video content doesn't start and keeps loading for up to 5 to 10 minutes. All of the content I have in this external hard drive is converted/compressed/optimized for best performance with ATV which took days to do so and some additional equipment (I had to buy a Elgato USB dongle to speed up the conversion).

Similarly there is a little latency with content I stream to Itunes in my macbook when the content is at my external drive. But it is acceptable. When I stream the video to my itunes, data comes from Harddrive > AEX > Macbook. But when I try to stream to ATV its route is much longer. It should be as simple as Harddrive > AEX > ATV.

The amount of video data I have on this USB drive is well above 300GB. And it doesn't make any sense for me to go through another conversion or any other work around just to watch a video from this harddrive which is already connected to my network. ATV2 should have ability to stream this content through Airport directly; it is just common sense. Maybe Apple could have a itunes server or homeshare functionality built in AEX, just like they did with MobileMe/AEX functionality.

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Answer 3

Livermac

Level 1

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Nov 6, 2010 1:11 AM in response to aoztovi

I love my ATV1 and the cheaper price of the the ATV2 meant that I have jumped in and bought 2. BUT, I am also experiencing delays in loading video streams to the two new devices from my local itunes set up, which is very frustrating.

Like the other posts my itunes library is on my laptop but the data is on an external drive (Synology Disk Station linked via Ethernet to my Time Capsule).

Friendly Apple people please advise if there is some things that I can look at to improve this situation.

Message was edited by: Livermac

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