Q: Apple TV HD Rental Streaming Problem

Jeckyl wrote:
What I don't get is what google's dns could do that so drastically affects atv's performance, but I can't deny what I'm seeing.

as i said previously in this thread, using these public DNS services can be bad for things like this (OpenDNS publicly state this).

apple use Akamai to distribute their content, and Akamai have servers all over the place so that the user gets content from the closest possible location.

Public DNS services make it look as if you are in a different geographic location, thus Akamai can't give you the content from the closest location.

of course if your ISP uses one of these DNS services by default then you might be screwed.\

see this for more info - http://apcmag.com/why-using-google-dns-opendns-is-a-bad-idea.htm

Well I see that I am not the only one with problems with apple tv. Does anybody here use Verizon Mifi wifi unit? After all the trouble I had with the apple tv, I am senting back to apple.

I do agree, it shouldn't matter if you hit Menu. In fact, when the movie is ready to watch Apple TV shows a message saying something like: To watch now press Play, to watch later press Menu. So, pressing Menu shouldn't be an excuse to flush your cache memory, and the movie that took 5 hours to download with it.

A few days after the software update (4.1) I tried renting Iron Man 2 in HD. I left it downloading overnight, didn't touch the Apple TV at all during the whole day. I was even afraid of getting too close to it. Then at night we managed to watch the movie without a problem. Of course we never paused it. So we were prepared beforehand. Success! After finishing the movie I wanted to "rewind" to re-watch a scene but the movie started downloading again. So I stopped it. Still, that shouldn't happen.

I thought I had found the solution. Simply do not pause the movie while being played. So on the weekend I tried to rent another HD movie and the plan was the same, let it download, don't even look at the Apple TV, and be prepared before the movie so no pauses are needed. So a day after the download was started I had the usual "press Play to watch now, or press Menu to watch later". I pressed play, I got the Loading... message, we held our breaths, and then we got the "Your movie will be ready to watch in 5 hours." NOOOOOOoooo! Why? the movie was downloaded overnight. I can check this on my ISP's website. So, disappointed we left it there and just started watching TV instead. After a while I noticed that the little LED light in front of the Apple TV turned off, so I wanted to check why it went to sleep instead of downloading again the movie. There was a message saying that the movie was ready to watch. The weird thing is that only a little bit a the progress bar was full. I pressed play and the movie played for just 3 minutes (until it reached the end of the bit of progress bar that was full) and stopped by itself. It even stopped downloading, why? No amount of Play/Pause would kick the movie downloading/playing again. So I pressed Menu and then Play again: Loading..., Your movie will be ready in 5 hours. After a while: "Your movie is ready to watch" and another 3 minutes were available. So, it seems that it is back to square one for me. What is wrong with this thing?

My wife has started calling it the Crapple TV

From the description of your problem it sounds like your device is not receiving a consistently good enough connection able to stream iTunes quality HD material. You might have to stick to content with lower bandwidth requirements like Netflix HD and iTunes rentals in SD. You can switch iTunes rentals to SD in Settings.

Message was edited by: newagemac

I had slow HD load times with my old DSL connection (~1.5 Mbps). Then I upgraded to 10+ Mbps, and no longer have the problem. Not saying there's not something else going on, but that's my experience.

To everyone that is having the problem where the movie is not saved in the buffer when you pause or press menu, I'd suggest the following workaround:

Don't rent the movie directly on Apple TV. Rent it on iTunes on your computer, then use Home Sharing to stream it to the Apple TV. The entire movie will download to your computer's hard drive, so it won't have to try to re-download everytime you press pause. Yes, yes, you shouldn't have to. Yes, yes, you should be able to rent the movies on the Apple TV as a standalone product. But if you seriously want to avoid these issues, it's pretty simple to do so.

I forgot. Diagnosing network problems can be tricky sometimes.

There is an excellent line quality test that can spot more problems than mere speed. It's available on
http://netalyzr.icsi.berkeley.edu/

To run it you need a modern computer with Java enabled. It's recommended to give authorization to the Java applet when prompted. As I said, this tool can help to diagnose some obscure problems.

I've got the same problem. I have a 30MBps cable broadband line and have downloaded on my pc, iPad and
Netbook at up and over 2MB a second, yet Apple TV 2 is not able to stream/download even 3 minutes of the movie without stopping and displaying the "loading" message (and I tried both wired and wireless directly on the cable modem). Once paused I seems to lose the stream and I have to start all over again. Not my best experience until now, Apple. Makes me consider throwing on XBMC and do away with iTunes altogether. Meanwhile I've blown 8 Euro on videos I could have rented much cheaper...

I should have mentioned that I know that my Internet connection is not very fast (1.5 Mbps) but I haven't complained about slow downloads. My complaint has always been that this new Apple TV doesn't keep what it has downloaded.

You can download the whole movie (for me downloading a whole HD movie takes between 5 and 7 hours, depending on the movie) but for not very apparent reasons, this ATV2 sometimes simply throws the download away and starts downloading the whole movie again (another 5 to 7 hours). That is my complaint, and that is what happened to us on the weekend. The movie was downloaded overnight; I can verify that on my ISP's usage records. ATV2 said it was ready to play. But when we tried to watch the movie, it tried to download it again. And then it just downloaded 3 minutes worth of movie and said it was ready to play, again.

With a 1.5 Mb/s connection a HD movie would never, if the software is working correctly, say after downloading just 3 minutes worth of movie, that the movie is ready to play. Someone said it before, it would be impossible. So something went wrong, and I don't think it was related to the connection. My guess is that because the movie was in memory (it was downloaded overnight) the ATV2 thought that getting just 3 minutes of it would be enough to say again "your movie is ready to watch". But for some reason it doesn't access that downloaded movie.

I have tried writing here to provide feedback
http://www.apple.com/feedback/appletv.html

So my only option to rent movies, as has been suggested here before, is to rent them on my computer and AirPlay them to the ATV2. My only issue with that is that here in Australia HD movies are only available to rent on ATV and iPad. No HD movie rentals for your computer. So I am stuck with SD movies. Ironically I got this ATV2 to be able to rent HD movies. But I can't do it reliably.

I've said it before, I would be happy if this thing holds the downloaded movie until it expires. Make it an option, as I guess people with very fast/unlimited Internet connections don't care about downloading the movie several times if necessary (a waste of server resources IMO, but...) And if you have this option on (to keep a downloaded movie until it expires) and you try to rent a second movie (considering this thing has 8 GB of memory) then warn the user and maybe give them the option to 1) Rent the second movie anyway and throw the first one away (what happens now). 2) Set an automatic download of the second movie once the first one has expired (you could queue a list of movies this way). Or 3) Add the second movie to the Wish List. Then this would be perfect for me.

Message was edited by: alondono

Since this problem began I rented movies on my iPad and streamed them through my ATV, last night I got a message that it was not authorized to play the movie.

Reading a lot of people blaming internet connection. This is completely false. Have 2 Gen 1 ATVs and one new one. The Old ones stream HD content from itunes store as fast as they always did, a few mins to start watching a movie. The new one gives the 'ready in...." message. HD movie, rented 2 mins later on older model? No issue. Also I concur with issues after the 4.1 update. Now have to restart itunes often (or restart mac) to get computer to appear in Atv2. Again, no problem at all with older models. Basically the new ATV is pants and they rushed it out.

That doesn't explain away a problem with the internet connection at all. Your ATV 1Gs might have stronger wireless connections and that could either be because the devices have different hardware, are in different locations, or on different wireless signals. The very first thing you should do if you are not having problems streaming with an old Apple TV but you are having problems with the new one is to hook it up with ethernet to see if the wireless signal it is getting is the problem.

done, done and done. Also note the Gen 1 was in the same spot as the new one before its release. While some people do have connection issues. I do not..My wireless network is strong, I have a airport base station and 4 airtunes plugs. My speed is consistently 15mbits. The ATV2 is faulty.

I have just spoken to Apple Support, and they have said they are getting a lot of calls regarding poor downloads, but the disappearing buffer is a new one to them. They are going to speak to the engineers and call me back tomorrow. Will update with their answer then. Meanwhile if anyone else is experiencing the disappearing buffer as well, could they please call apple support as well. He also mentioned that the telephone support remains open (over the 90 day period) for anyone who has called in.

Apple has issued a minor software update for Apple TV. hopefully this fixes some of the issues we are seeing. As far as my personal experiences go, since last posting on this thread, ISP throttling creates my issue with long load times. Having said that, from reading this thread it is clear that this does not apply to everyone. However, the redownload of content when pausing and returning to the main menu for a brief period of time is an ongoing issue for me. I have to leave the movie paused, disable sleep and screensaver as a workaround. Hopefully the software update will help with these issues we are all experiencing. Best of luck!

MightyMac - Have you confirmed your problem is from ISP throttling? I ask as I'm in Ontario (Kanata), with Rogers, and have had the same experience since purchasing the new gen ATV. My original gen works just fine.

Is movie rentals classed as P2P in ISP terms?