Apple TV 2nd Generation slow streaming for Movies from my iTunes

Downloading apple movie took and hour and half,. Just bought apple TV so I thought this was the way it worked. It was then too late to watch the movie. Next day, went to watch movie, it had to download again for the hour plus. The third day, i downloaded the movie 2 hours before wanting to watch it. I am watching the movie, last 5 minutes it stops. I have to wait 10 minutes for the ending. This was my first use of my apple tv, was afraid to spend evening trying netflix.

So I just started having similar problems with my atv and came here in hopes to address it without contacting apple, as I know everything worked about two weeks ago. No luck, so I started tinkering and came up with one possible solution. The most likely issue with most of the atv streaming is going to be the local network. I have a MacBook pro (mbp) and a time capsule n router (tc) with time Warner broadband. I tested my download speed via mbp and found 10-12 Mbps to be my average, more than suitable for streaming. Thinking that the atv had an issue clearing the flash drive after streaming movies, I figured resetting it would do it, as well as signing out of home share and photo stream, no luck. So last try, I thought restarting iTunes and the mbp would clear the long list of recents, nothing again. I assumed the router was fine since my download test went through the router to complete, but I'll check anyways, sure enough, there are options for alternate Fred's that I was unaware of. Being in a neighborhood where I can scan roughly 20 networks at any given time, I thought I'd give it a try. Sure enough, first try with 1080 movie from my library streamed in about 3 seconds. I tried a store stream from the atv and it started in roughly 30 seconds and played with no interruption. So if you live in an area with a high number of routers, try swapping your routers freq, may eliminate your problems, most new routers now come with this feature since wireless has become so common. For the tc, go to airport and select the tc and hit edit and you will have to enable the 5ghz freq (and name it) and then update the router, viola! Hope this helps.

Alternate frequencies*

Guys,

It's amazing that this topic is opened since 2010 and Apple did not resolve the issue so far.

My streaming of local files (itunes) is really slow most of the times and I have no idea why. I'm sure it's not network neither my computer. In this case the problem points either to iTunes or Apple TV - both of them under Apple's control.

Sad fact.

Wasted money 😟

Local content has nothing to do with Apple's servers. It's going through your local network so that's what you need to look at as to the cause.

Hello Vazandrew!

I'm sure that my local content is my responsability. However, you can't play it if you don't login using your AppleStore account. Yes. That's the way it works but that's not even my bigest complain...

My problem is that it keeps freezing over and over. Losing connection very often so I need to login again.

My setup is:

- iMac/Macbook acting as a server for my movies

- Air port Extrem (802.11n) as my wireless network

- iTunes acts like server (ouch! might be a problem. I never considered iTunes a good app but that's the only one supplied by Apple)

- Apple TV to reproduce it to my tv set.

You see? It's all Apple. Should work (or not?). 🙂

My connection to Internet has Static IP (8mpbs), cisco router and it's monitored 24/7 of the time - my last instability happened over 4 years ago when my range of IP was changed.

I also tried my i7/16GB Ram/2x2TB disk but it's the same sh**.

My question is: WHAT APPLE HAS TO SAY ABOUT IT?

It's your home-sharing ID. The Apple ID only applies to purchased content. You likely have the same for both.

If it's local content it isn't going through the internet.

You need to check for interference using istumbler.net

Try ethernet

If you haven't checked

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS2972

This is a user forum. You are not addressing Apple nor will you get a response from them.

I understand the concept and I don't need to discuss it. I'm absoletely sure that my local file won't be sent to Internet and than sent back to me again so let's forget about Apple ID and focus on the real problem. 😉

istumbler.net was already used and no sign of problems.

I'll try ethernet but judging by recent posts I don't think it will work.

I also stopped my AV - just to make sure Kaspersky wasn't making a mess.

I'll try ethernet and post my results later.

Thank you.

It didn't sound like you did you brought up the Internet connection. You made no mention of istumbler so there was no way of knowing, what were the results? No need to get defensive.

Yes, try Ethernet and see what happens

I had problems similar to many of the posters. They corrected themselves when I replaced a Ethernet switch that connected my media Mac mini to my Aiport Extreme. I had done the replacement to upgrade my network and am very pleased that it also fixed this problem.

Hope that provides a usefull clue.

Hi PPL.

I am from Germany, and i hope you understand what i try to tell you within the next lines :-D

I had the same problems with my AppleTV 3rd gen, streaming from my Imac 27" over wlan was nearly impossible. Also streaming ICloud contents was very slow.

Somehow I fixed the problem here, everything runs fine and fast now.

I´m not sure if this was really THE solution, but let me explain what i did:

- first i told my ATV3 to "forget" the wlan connection settings and connected to a different router via wlan.

- then i repeated this step and reconnected to my original wlan router.

- finally i set the screen resolution to 1080P 50hz (depending on the TV´s hardware), not to "Auto".

Can a wrong - or "Auto"-setting for the resolution cause a system slowdown?

Don´t know...

Now my ATV is working stunning fast, streaming music or photos via Icloud starts instantly, and streaming HD content (1080P) from my Mac also starts directly after pressing the play button.

I hope this will help you, too!

I am very happy now!

I am thinking of going back to windows products. After 5 years battling with apple TV, I had enough!!!!

If you me, your happiness will be short lived...

Try changing your apple TV and the Mac you are streaming from to a manual ip address on your LAN. Copy the currnet IP displayed. It seems to work for me at the moment.

Hello Vazandrew!

Sorry for taking so long to respond but I simply had no time to play with it lately.

iStumbler shows 58%. Moved my Apple Air Port closer then I got 65% yet with the same bad results on streaming.

The really weird thing is that some times it works just nicely. I have checked for interference, changed channels and all but nothing seems to have any effect.

On the other hand, with the same settings and situation it might work just fine the next day.

I'd say that my environment is too "polluted" if the same problem didn't happen with a friend of mine who lives in a kind of farm.

What I did last week was updating Apple TV with the latest firmware. I used it 3 times since then and there is no sign of problems so far.

Fingers crossed. 😉