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

I take it back. After one show it's back to the painfully slow streaming. I am NOT going tomreset the ATV2 after each show

Mmmm .... I'll think more about it (probably next time mine slows down). The airport restarts work for me and I know the ATV2 reset works as well .... But I also know what works in one instance doesn't appear to work in another. It's a strange beast !! Oh, while I think of it, I wasn't asking you to reset after each movie ..... I was only trying to help. (I'll be in touch if I make any new breakthroughs on this one). Regards ....

I realise you didn't mean for me to reset after each show, I just meant that that's what it seems I may have to do! I have resorted to trying to connect the device by ethernet to our network, but that does not seem to help. In fact, after doing that, it seemed not to be able to see my HomeShare at all...

Aha!! I think I figured it out! There were some local IT guys here a few weeks ago (just when this issue arose) and I believe they changed my Time Capsule's configuration, giving it a manual router address that is different from what the ATV2 was looking for. Now that I've got them set up the same, the loading is much faster.

Same problems as everyone else. . .
I have an old ATV 1 and a new ATV 2.

They are both wireless with new third party router. Both in the same room for testing, a reasonable distance away.
Network is 12mbs.

Three windoze machines, one iMac, several iPhones and iPod Touches on the network. Everything works great except ATV 2. Slow and painful rentals, in HD or Standard. Sometime they don't ever work at all or finish. After I'm charged of course.

ATV 1 has full bars of network signal strength.
ATV 2 has three bars of network signal strength on the same TV.

Wire with Ethernet is no different. Still the same slow problems.

Have been having the same problem of being able to download movies, YouTube, trailers etc, but streaming from my iTunes library to the Apple TV had, all of a sudden, become unbelievably frustrating, after a great start.

I have tried all possible fixes, including rebooting/resetting router; closing down iTunes; restoring the aTV and many, many more. I read all the available threads and have been tearing my hair out for two days.

I am positive that there are people who have similar problems and this fix won't work for them but equally, I'm sure this will help some others.

After all this time, I was going through this thread again and noticed the following, posted by cthomps:

"1. I rebooted my iMac then downloaded episodes of "The Walking Dead" would play just fine in HD"

I can't believe that I had not rebooted the iMac! Did so, and the movies are streaming like a champ! D'oh!!

As above, I'm sure that many of you have already tried this but there will be many of us who have overlooked this most basic of steps. I really hope it works for you too.

I just bought unstoppable and it says it has 5 hours and 31 minutes to go.. What the heck is this thing for? I have to leave tomorrow, so by the time it is downloaded I won't be able to watch it and I will have rented a movie for nothing. This apple tv is about to go back to the store.

This may not be of use to anyone else, but for the sake of completeness let me announce that I have finally figured out the source of my troubles and now my ATV and all other WiFi equipment is working perfectly! The problem was all caused by my Airport Expresses being unable to share DHCP properly with a non-Apple base station (a Ubiquiti Bullet, for what it's worth) that was added to our network to expand its range across our large house. We have now got rid of the Airports entirely, using only the Ubiquiti base station and two pico stations by the same company, and all is working fine. As an experiment, I added one Airport Express to the network to see if that was indeed the culprit, and sure enough, though all my devices had a strong WiFi signal, none could access the internet or perform their normal functions properly. Phew.

This one is a buzz kill and makes the product useless

AppleTV version prior to 2 worked ( and btw. does work ) - this does not - taking anything more than 1 minute to buffer and load a movie is total BS - product is a black box of nothing useful. Waste of $$$ - shame other products are out there that work for this does not.

Work arounds of do this do that ( it is always the user's network fault ). . . more BS - Apple : Fix the software, duh !

Shame such a kewl idea / item gets nothing

Message was edited by: q256

this is pretty funny.. over a million of these things have been sold and yet the complaining of 10-20 guys on a discussion forum causes them to think that their is some huge all encompassing inherent problem in appleTV 2.. even on this very thread there are a good portion who have reported.. oh.. i did this or that to my network and in now works.

do you not think that with over a million of these out there if there was some inherent problem that maybe there would be more of an outcry than a few guys on a discussion form? half of which say.. oh, i just did this and now it works...

appleTV is a bit rough around the edges.. can't wait from the next update myself, but.. there are PLENTY of people (myself included) for who the basic functionality works flawlessly. my HD downloads are ready to play in max 30 seconds.. typically 10-20seconds.. the play flawlessly and don't have any kinds of hiccups in terms of streaming at all..

I see you manage to peruse the threads frequently but I am sure your numbers are a far cry of accurate.

AppleTV never was a big seller. The original which I have two is / was a bit of a geekware toy. AppleTV version 2 should not be ' rough around the edges ', sorry - they have a number of years with these types of toys under their belts. I highly doubt a million total of these units have ever been sold HOWEVER with the low price of about $ 100, most users expectations are pretty low ( but having a prior product that did function . . . well there leads a comparison and expectation ).

Most Apple product users never post anything on discussion pages. Many years ago when their products where not as popular the % of posts to users was far higher and almost even encouraged. These days just finding these pages to joe common mac user is almost void and far from encouraged.

Roku HD Player which I also have works flawlessly, used in wireless mode etc . . . AppleTV version 2 does not, something about their wireless network side is where the problem is - perhaps - but I know there are many other posts ( not just this thread )

It was at 1million in sales 3mths ago... see news release below.. out selling the rate of the gen. 1 box hand over fist..

contrary to what most people perceive.. appleTV gen. 2 has brand new, developed from scratch software on a brand new platform (iOS vs OS X for the 1st gen.) there is bound to b problems and there is.. even the product direction itself is a quite a departure from the gen. 1 box.. people see appleTV 1, appleTV 2 and they think it is just an evolution, but it really isn't.. it's a brand new from the ground up new product..

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/12/21appletv.html

+New Apple TV Sales to Top One Million This Week+

+CUPERTINO, California—December 21, 2010—Apple® today announced that it expects sales of its new Apple TV® to top one million units later this week. The new Apple TV offers the simplest way to watch your favorite HD movies and TV shows, stream content from Netflix, YouTube, Flickr and MobileMe℠, all on your HD TV for the breakthrough price of just $99. iTunes® users are now renting and purchasing over 400,000 TV episodes and over 150,000 movies per day.+

+Now with AirPlay®, recently available in iOS 4.2, users can wirelessly stream their music, video and photos from iPad™, iPhone® and iPod touch® to their new Apple TV, making it the perfect iOS accessory. Users can also control Apple TV with their iPad, iPhone or iPod touch using the Remote app, available as a free app on the App Store℠.+

+Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork, and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple is reinventing the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and has recently introduced its magical iPad which is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices.+

Message was edited by: tmartine

I was having the same problem. My AppleTV 2 was almost useless for watching movies loaded in iTunes but worked OK for Netflix and Youtube.

After changing the settings of my Airport Extreme from 802.11n ONLY to 802.11 b/g compatible, the the problem is fixed.

Funny thing, though, the original AppleTV 2 software version refused to connect with the Airport Extreme in b/g compatible mode and I had to set the AP to 802.11n only. The current ATV 4.1.1 software obviously doesn't like 802.11n only but works fine in b/g compatible mode.

Too bad Apple can't get the wireless driver working consistently on ATV2.

Hi

I too have had these problems.

First things first. The problem I am talking about is slow streaming from iTunes to ATV. This problem is inside the LAN and nothing to do with slow downloads or streaming from the Apple store itself. Your internet link is not therefore a factor - I do accept that there are Internet link issues but that is not the problem that we are trying to address.

After a lot of trial and error, with my system sometimes working and sometimes not, it is clear that the network and devices themselves are capable of providing a good service when they are working properly. If they were not, then it would never work; when my system is working correctly, I can feed HD films from my iMac with only about 15 seconds buffer time (and boy is it nice when it works!).

When it stops working however, it seems to latch into a series of problems that result in the infuriating slow to buffer time - my worse case being 60 minutes to buffer a 10 minute video.

Lots of posts have recommended rebooting the ATV or the wireless router or the iMac. What I have found is that once the problem has occurred, resetting one of these does not fix the problem nor has it for many of the posts. I have no idea what causes the problem in the first place but once it has happened it is VERY difficult to get rid of it.

However...

I have discovered that there seems to be some kind of 'deadly embrace' (programmers may recognise this term). Once one thing goes wrong, it seems to cause the others to go wrong too.

I have found that if you turn off EVERYTHING all AT THE SAME TIME so that your entire system is reset, then this fixes the problem for me.

My turning it back on order is:

WiFi Router
ATV2
iMac
iTunes

Then 'pull' the film from your ATV rather than 'Push' it from your Mac.

I have done this a few times now and it has worked every time. My problem returns about once a week but it is not too bad doing the full reset just once a week. I hardly ever write to forums but this one is so infuriating, I thought it was worth it.

Hope this works for you!

Here's my solution that's worked so far.

I live in an apartment building with about 13 different networks that my AirPort Express can detect, including my own. I changed my settings to only broadcast on the 5 Ghz channel on my AirPort Express, then turned off/on my iMac, wife's Macbook, and 2nd gen AppleTV.

Now all HD TV shows and movies stream with no delay. Overall our internet connection has increased from 3 mb/s to 5-6 mb/s as well. Never had a problem streaming music, Netflix, YouTube, or Apple radio.

I think the 2.4 Ghz channel is just too "congested" and 5 seems to be much, much better.

Just throwing this out there.....