Apple TV HD Rental Streaming Problem

slughand - you could well be right. Server issues would explain the more random nature of the occurence, albeit my issues seem to be confined to times of peak internet demand.

I am going to continue to try and find a correlation between poor network performance and ATV2 streaming issues. I am going to keep using the speedtest.net app on my iphone to gauge network performance and compare results.

Anyone else measuring network speed and ATV performance?

Same experience here, totally unable to rent movies from iTunes. Netflix streams without problem, as does youtube.

have done basic troubleshooting, rebooting, etc. problem has persisted for 4 consecutive nights, with "ready to play" numbers ranging from 1 to 500+ minutes, and occasionally a "your apple tv is not authorized to play this content"

Very frustrating

I've experienced the same issue, described it here http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2598973&tstart=0 with a fix that worked for me.

To make a long story short: after spending a few hours troubleshooting every piece of my local network to finally find out my network is perfectly fine, I remembered my wifi router was set up to use Google's DNS instead of my ISP's.
Turned out to be the problem.
With google dns: almost impossible to start an HD TV Show rental.
Without (either TWC's or dnsadvantage's), everything streams perfectly, almost instantly.

For the record, here's my setup:
- TWC Road Runner (cheapest plan) in west Lost Angeles
- AirportExpress N router
- 7 clients on this AP
- About 7 to 10 surrounding Wifi networks (meaning boatloads of interference)
- speedtest.net reports 6 to 10Mbp/s of available bandwidth, depending on the hour.

I'd be very interested to know if that solution works for other people, since I'm very curious as what google's dns could do that messes up so badly the atv.

Ny Apple TV 2 is also very slow in showing a trailer or movie. Yet at times - it is very fast at showing a trailer. Have not rented a movie yet. Not sure I want to. Our neighborhood has had problems with internet speed. We are working on that. I tried many different locations with Airport Express to extend the internet connection but no luck. Last time I checked I was getting about 3 MBps when I should be getting 7 or greater. Even my iPhone freezes during youTube in my wifi network.

Got popcorns and drinks ready. Kids excited - wanted to see "Nanny McPhee and The Big Bang" for some time now. We all sat down, previewed trailer no problem, rented the film, but it I got message "ready to play in 1952 min"). My six year old son was mortified that he has to sit and wait all that time. :):):). I went to Menu and started film again - this time film has started after one minute, but no sound. £4.49 down the drain. Finished watching DVD. Will ask for money back in the morning. 😟

I too had this problem. Rented "The Ghost Writer" on Sunday night, said it would take 130 minutes. Left it running and switched over to TiVo. Went back the next night, and said it was fully loaded. Started playing and it worked fine. But then I paused the playback for about 30 minutes. When I returned, I received a message stating that it would take 130 minutes to start! Crazy.

Called Apple support today. They refunded my $6 for the rental, but no solution. I pointed out that I get HD Netflix, Mobile Me, and YouTube video blazingly fast. In fact, Netflix playback on Apple TV is far superior than either my TiVo or PS3. But crazy that the single, on-going source of revenue for Apple -- rentals -- would be this problematic.

I had the same problem, called Apple but was not refunded, instead, I was awarded a free rental. I did "solve" the problem by changing my Apple TV settings to download only in Regular Definition and not HD. Rentals now stream in a matter of seconds. But yes, renting in HD for me is not an option, it takes too long.

By the way I have since upgraded to time Warner high speed Internet at "up to 10Mbps", though so far I'm getting speeds of 15-28 Mbps. Used to get 1.5-2.5 Mbps on my AT&T dsl.

Anyway, with the higher speeds I now get instant streaming on rentals, HD trailers, HD podcasts, everything. Definitely solved my problem!

I bought apple tv yesterday & rented a HD film. The film started quickly but kept stopping during play back. It was showing that it was trying to catch up with the streaming but after leaving it for some time found that the only way to get back to the film was to press the menu button & start again from last viewed (this worked instantly). My broadband is Virgin 50mb & on tests it is always around 49mb.

Something I have recently discovered with the ATV when streaming from a rental direct from the ATV all works fine to start off until my ISP restricts my connection.

The reason is this, if the ISP detects that I have been connected for 1hr downloading lots of content (streaming) they throttle down my 10MB connection to 512KB or less. all due to "The Fair Use Agreement". So if you are a big downloader of other content this will effect you as well.

How does this effect the movie rentals from itunes - it means it takes two days to watch a movie because of the forced intermission. Not a good experience.

Great I have a product that does not allow me to use it as the maker intended because my ISP strangles my connection.

whats the solution upgrading the connection to an unrestricted deal (hopefully that will work). (More money!)

So just for now ATV is like an airport express.

my ISP in the UK is Virgin media, on a cable connection for now until I go fibre optic.

Try unplugging the APTV2 and plugging back in. That worked for me.

I am having this same issue. I rented a movie last night and it said ready to play. However when I went to play, the AppleTV told me 57 minutes until it would be ready to play. So, I waited until today to watch it. The movie played for 8 minutes and then paused, waiting for the stream to catch up. When it did download more of the stream, it played for 2 more minutes and then paused.

I checked my internet connection speed on DSL reports and I am seeing 22 Mbits/second.

While many users here will point the finger at a persons network or connection speed I do not believe this is the case. I think the issue is more on Apples end. I have now rented 3 HD movies and all exhibited the same issue. They played fine but I paused to get something to drink and then come back to resume and it will not play again. This is happens with the movie buffered up in the 90% range with the movie playback in the mere 10% range at best. So no this is not a network issue. To further support this I loaded up another movie in a different room on PS3 netflix, High Definition, and it played immediately and completely without issue to the end. After the PS3 movie finished I tried the partially watch ATV movie again. It still shows buffer almost full but still would not play. It finally prompted with a message that playback would be ready in some outlandish timeframe that I cannot recall.

My connection speed varies but in general are 18Mbps but reaching 30Mbps off peak. I would suspect my connection if I had not been able to play HD netflix movies on the PS3 without issue at the same time the ATV seemed to fail in the task. In addition I have streamed Netflix movies months before getting the ATV2 without issues such as this.

I think Apple has just failed to deliver on a key feature of this device. I expect it will get fixed but it should have been better than this to start with.

Yeah- thought I had it solved but an HD movie froze halfway through. Totally disappointed! Thus is truly an APPLE HOBBY that needs to be taken seriously! Instant movies? BS!

Yep- this is a hobby! Totally disappointed in this product.