Apple TV HD Rental Streaming Problem

Absolute rubbish. We all may as well download movies illegally if apple are not going to fix these problems. Apple are happy to take our money without providing anything but frustration in return.

Well do you know what, I have probably the worst Internet connection in the world, 1MB download. However, I have downloaded 3 films (a trilogy) and whilst they take a week to download, the issue is getting them to play when they have finally downloaded. I have watched the first 2, but the third is a real problem. It tells me that the the film is downloaded but wants a further 5 hours to load!!!! Every time I go back to it I get various messages of 4-5 hours loading time. It's just crazy. I have noticed that as soon as I purchase the money goes from my account, regardless of whether I can watch it or not.

Apple this is rubbish and you are taking money for the purchase of a device that doesn't work and then for films that are not provided. Sort yourselves out please!

Steve - may I suggest you try renting in iTunes as the download is protected there until the rental/view period expires and can be watched on AppleTV once fully downloaded under Computers>iTunes library name>Rentals which appears when there's a downloaded rental in iTunes.

The problem with renting in iTunes is that many HD titles are not available there (at least in UK), but if you're on 1Mbps even SD will probably take half a day to download - I used to rent in the morning or overnight to watch teh following evening on AppleTV1 when I was on 1 Mbps.

AC

Thanks AC, I'll try that but I'm confused. The film has downloaded and tells me how long it is available to view for. If I download via iTunes, why is that different?

Based on your internet speed AppleTV downloads enough of a movie so that the rest can download as you watch - it calculates how much it needs to get before starting to play.

The trouble is AppleTV doesn't actually store the downloaded film or portion downloaded until it expires - instead it caches or buffers it in solid state memory. If you use AppleTV for other things, even just watching a trailer, it can causes the portion downloaded to be erased and for the process to start again from scratch.

While it might take a little longer for the item to fully download to iTunes than to be ready to play on AppleTV doing nothing else, once it's in iTunes it's there for the duration until it expires - this will allow you to use AppleTV for other things plus you can rewatch the movie within the view period without it having do redownload from the internet to AppleTV.

It should give a far more reliable experience once it's ready in iTunes.

Apple's rentals are a fixed size in GB for a given film irresepctive of your connection speed whereas Neflix for example drops quality on slower connections.

AC

Make sense AC... Pity Apple hasn't bothered to respond to 48 pages of complaints with that same understandable info. They could benefit by offerring a more costly ATV that included a hard drive for caching/storage (like a DVR operates) and have two models for their customers to choose from and COMMUNICATING why you would choose one over the other.

andyfrommaryland heights wrote:

They could benefit by offerring a more costly ATV that included a hard drive for caching/storage (like a DVR operates) and have two models for their customers to choose from and COMMUNICATING why you would choose one over the other.

Yes thta would be ideal wouldn't it - the original silver AppleTV had either 40GB or 160GB drives for just that purpose so you could use one like a video iPod without internet or network connection once synced up with media.

The more feedback the better to:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

AC

I noticed the problem right after upgrading to the latest software for the ATV 2. I'm using the Xbox 360 to stream movies now, not Apple.

When the AppleTV2 was announced, I purchased a spare AppleTV1 because of the Hard Disk space. Download, sync to AppleTV1 and you are set. Streaming from the cloud and Home Sharing are not ready for prime time.

I have a 50MB internet package and it takes forever to stream movies from the cloud. It would be really nice to have the next generation of AppleTV to have a Hard Drive.

I tried to rent a movie tonight on mt atv2 and I paid 10 bucks for the rental. It will not play. Will I be charged? It says it will take 17 hours to load and then it throws a error. What should I do?

Why $10 ?

Check www.speedtest.net to see speed

Check www.istumbler.net (net stumbler for windows) for interference

Make sure you're on your ISPs DNS

It's a movie called "god bless America" it's apparently available on iTunes before it is officially released so it was 10$ it looks really good and was made by bobcat goldthwait who I really like. He has another good movie called worlds greatest dad. It is on Netflix. Good flick.

Hi

I have got the following problem: When I rent a HD movie fron Itunes (I haven´t tried with a non HD) I can see the movie, but no sound at all. When I see a trailer it works OK (film with sound), When I see films from Netflix I have no problem.

Until now I haven´t receive a satsfactory answer from apple.

Can anybody help me?

Thank you

By the way, I live in Chile, Southamerica.

What a piece of junk.
I’ve been purchasing rentals on the ipad no issues.

Brought the new generation Apple TV, very first rental gave 170 min buffer to load.
Changed it to 720p, now 80 mins. (have a 4mb connection) I let it buffer all the way to Press Play now or Menu to watch later. I press menu and start the movie the next day. It plays all the way to the buffer then stops. I can’t get to load. After trying many things I reset the Apple TV and it starts reloading the move from the start. I only have a 40gig plan so I can’t keep doing that.
What a piece of junk. I’ve “reported a fault” and asked for my money back.

What I simply can’t believe is issue is years old. Connection speed shouldn’t matter; they need to fix their rental movies caching problems. A poorly implemented solution if there ever was one. YouTube / Netflix on my Sony BlueRay player seems to handle 1080p buffering and resuming no issues.

720P on iTunes requires a 6mbps for instant playback, 1080 requires 8mbps. The device doesn't have storage so of course turning off/restarting it (or accessing other content) will require a reload.

Speed is the first thing to look at and it does matter. Other common factors are interference and using a non ISP DNS.

Youtube content is highly compressed, and often short. Not a good comparison. Netflix uses a method where it adapts based on your connection. iTunes quality is fixed, this is why it requires a wait on a slower connection (it starts once enough has buffered in order for smooth playback)

It does work for the majority so if you're interested in troubleshooting (rather than ranting), and getting it to work that's your choice.