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

Recent Apple TV user and I have to say this is by far the WORST apple product experience I've ever had....reminds me of early Microsoft days.   All downloads start but eventually stop or pause unbearably long.

Definitely Apple TV issue as

1 Netflix works fine on wii and Xbox 1

2 trailers works fine on iPad

3 thought it might be wifi so switched to Ethernet connection to no avail

ANY advice appreciated but I find it hard to believe that this is an apple product!

WOW what a huge disappointment.

Thanks

I just got it to work for me by a very weird workaround. It was going to take 3 hours to download 1 single episode of a show so I downloaded it on my computer in iTunes, connected to my ATV via homesharing with my computer and it works now flawlessly.

Just a bump:  Also for me with the latest AppleTV update a 6 months or a year ago the AppleTV insists on checking everything with iTunes even streaming my own videos and music that I have stored on my local HDD on in my iTunes file on my Home Shared Apple.  If I'm connected to the internet it's a few seconds to start streaming, if I'm NOT connected to the internet then songs may take 1 or 2 minutes to "time out" and video's seem to take longer I'm guessing to verify with iTunes.  It's quite offensive for those of us who have to have satalite internet or from 4G internet with low data plans per month, hence I usually keep my computers OFF line to save my data.  A couple days of my computers being on and I can hit my data cap with them doing automatic downloading in backgrounds etc that I wasn't aware of.  I find it easier to just be offline most of the time, so because of the latest update where it has to check with iTunes I rarely use my AppleTV anymore.  If it's not fixes I won't get any new purchases on iTunes or any new AppleTV type of products.  Sorry Apple.  You make it difficult to use a product so I won't use it and buy DVDs or BlueRays instead.

Apple TV should be pulled from the market.  When I purchased mine close to Two years ago it worked brilliantly.  A couple of updates later everything ground to a snails pace so I just stopped using it.

My father just purchased a new one so I thought maybe the latest unit might me different, no such luck.

Like you say every thing else works fine, pull down a movie preview from YouTube on my iPad, instant playback, use my airplay, dreadful.

I am glad it worked for you I did all of those things for which thank you very much but the improvement was negligible. I never ever had this problem bnefore the latest Mavericks upgrade this is an Apple issue which needs to be addressed let's hope it is taken care of soon, no matter how resourceful and ingenious us Apple fans are we should not have to do workarounds for such superb equipment, as the Jobster used to say "it just works"

As always a pleasure to get into the forums one of the many benefits of owning Apple products.

I am running New iMac27in maxed up spec new Airport Extreme with a 1Gb fibre optic feed Apple TV 3 and the relevant mobile devices.

After reading many of the posts and adopting a few of the solutions the effect was marginal but when I switched the network from 2.4 to 5 on both computer and ATV the problem went away hoepfully for good.

Thanks everyone.

I know this was a while ago, but did you ever figure out the problem? I have a 2011 iMac and 2 practically brand new apple tv 2s and am having the exact same issue. Netflix works fine, but movies streaming from my iMac will not load at all. Any help you could provide would be greatly appreciated!

After trouble shooting and talking to Apple we confirmed that iTunes MUST connect to the internet to CHECK viewing rights before EVERY video and audio book etc before it will allow AppleTV to play.  Way to solve, ensure you have internet constantly when picking movies, tv shows, audio books etc, or find another way to purchase digital media.  I think it may be a contractual deal with one or more digital providers by having this check to keep them happy.  Why it even checks my OWN videos is mind boggling.

My work around? Imac's mini display to HDMI and a long HDMI to HDTV and in my case headphone jack to RCA for audio to stereo.   AppleTV 1st and 3rd generation are now relegated to paper weights.  Since my ONLY internet options are smart phone hot spot (10 gig cap per month) satellite internet (10 gig cap per month) streaming video from Netflix etc are impractical and expensive. 

So don't waste time trying to make it work, because as of 8 months ago it doesn't and it's not likely that it will change unless that "Checking" feature is disabled in future iTune/AppleTV updates.  Not sure which product is actually at fault, but I bet it's iTunes.

Well repondants are talking about two completely differnent situations

1) Streaming content directly from iTunes to AppleTV

2) Streaming already downloaded content from iTunes on a computer on local network

1) I find usually find that router reboot fixes and or logging in and out of iTunes Store

2) also router reboot and/or logging in and out of home sharing Apple TV and/or computer... also with latest versions of OSX  computer doesn't reliably wake computer any more.. a mouse wiggle to wake computer fixes this... sometimes it does take exiting and opening iTunes on computer...

Wow! I think I tried everything on every site I found after searching this problem. My fix was so simple I can't believe it will work for everyone but my router was set to channel 2, I swapped it to 11 and all the problems simply vanished.