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Skips and Stutters while Streaming from iTunes

Hello! I recently purchased a current generation Time Capsule (1TB), as well as an AppleTV, and I have a 3 year old MacBook Pro. I have no problems when I use the AppleTV interface to select music from my library and play it. It comes across clear, no skips or stutters, and it works both when I connect via Ethernet or WiFi to my Time Capsule.

However, when I select my AppleTV as speakers from iTunes on my MBP and attempt to stream that way, the music is full of stuttering and skips (plays for a second or two, pauses for a second or two). This happens whether the ATV is hooked up via Ethernet or WiFi. Additionally, the MacBook Pro is about 10 feet away from my Time Capsule and AppleTV when this happens.

Does anyone have any ideas? It's somewhat maddening to always have to select my music on the AppleTV even when I'm on my computer.

Thank you!

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.6)

Posted on Jan 18, 2011 6:07 AM

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Posted on Jan 19, 2011 4:01 AM

I use a PC and was experiencing the same issue. I did a 'restore' on the Apple TV and it seems to have eliminated the skips/stutters, although the overall audio quality is still subpar -- evrything still sounds slightly muffled/distorted and is nowhere near as clear and dynamic as when I used an older Airport Express to stream from itunes version 9.x.

Based on my limited troubleshooting, I suspect the culprit is the format/level of the signal that the ATV outputs that my Denon 2803 AV receiver doesn't like. I swapped TOSLINK cables and tried both wired and unwired network connections, neither of which made any difference. Also tried different input settings on my AVR (auto, PCM, etc), which also made zero difference. Another clue: when I play back music through my TV's speakers alone from the ATV (via HDMI) it sounds clean.

Quite a dissapointment to say the least!
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Question marked as Best reply

Jan 19, 2011 4:01 AM in response to Cody DH

I use a PC and was experiencing the same issue. I did a 'restore' on the Apple TV and it seems to have eliminated the skips/stutters, although the overall audio quality is still subpar -- evrything still sounds slightly muffled/distorted and is nowhere near as clear and dynamic as when I used an older Airport Express to stream from itunes version 9.x.

Based on my limited troubleshooting, I suspect the culprit is the format/level of the signal that the ATV outputs that my Denon 2803 AV receiver doesn't like. I swapped TOSLINK cables and tried both wired and unwired network connections, neither of which made any difference. Also tried different input settings on my AVR (auto, PCM, etc), which also made zero difference. Another clue: when I play back music through my TV's speakers alone from the ATV (via HDMI) it sounds clean.

Quite a dissapointment to say the least!

Feb 15, 2011 11:12 AM in response to Cody DH

Sorry to dredge up my old thread. After doing a restore on the AppleTV it was fine for quite a while. However, today this started again. I checked that my wireless network isn't being interfered with by others (using iStumbler), and it looks fine, reset all of my equipment, etc. and I'm still having this issue:

- Streaming from iTunes to AppleTV = Skips and stutters
- Streaming from iPhone to AppleTV = Perfect
- Choosing media from iTunes on my AppleTV = Perfect

Does anyone know what could cause this? It just doesn't make any sense at all.

Dec 21, 2011 2:03 PM in response to Cody DH

I just got an ATV 2 and I have the same problem when I select the ATV as a "remote speaker" from iTunes. The music pauses and stutters every few seconds. No problem connecting to and browsing my library (home sharing) and playing music using the ATV itself--the music plays fine. It's just when I'm sitting at my computer and running iTunes and want to "deejay" from there that I see (hear rather) the problem.


I've updated the ATV and iTunes software to the latest. My 11n wireless network is fine and I can do the analogous thing with Logitech Media Center streaming to a Squeezebox with no problems. I'm running iTunes in Windows 7.


This isn't a huge deal but it would be nice if every cool feature worked. It's a cool little device.


Apple?

Dec 26, 2011 10:10 AM in response to Skamandrios

Re-reading my own description of this problem prompted me to realize that I have the Logitech Media Server running simultaneously with iTunes, and perhaps I should try disabling that software. This I did, and thus far the stuttering has stopped. I'm not sure what the Logitech thing is doing while idle, but it's believable that it could affect other media streaming processes.

Jan 10, 2012 12:52 PM in response to Skamandrios

There are a couple of threads about stuttering, skipping or faltering when streaming media.

Most concern ATV.

I have had this problem when streaming over home network. My music is on an external USB drive.

I connect wirelessly through a wireless repeater that in turn connects to a router which connects to the computer that hosts the USB drive via ethernet.

What happened:-

I connected with my iPhone to my MacPro wirelessly and found my shared music through the music app.

Playback was intermittent.

I played back directly through iTunes on my MacPro.

Playback was intermittent.

I considered the possibilities - especially whether the MacPro had insufficient memory to buffer the music.

I closed down all memory hungry applications (Firefox and iTunes in this case) and restarted iTunes.

No luck.

I did not shut down the MacPro or any of the routers, or the host to the USB drive.

I found out, inter alia, that the whole chain supports PHY Modes:802.11 a/b/g/n.

So OK.

I down loaded the iPhone Remote app. This itself, works. But it remoted to the MacPro that still played intermittently.

However I do believe that the Remote app aids in discovery of the shared library. i.e. use this first just to connect and connecting through the Music app to the shared library seems less painful.

I came back to it the next day.

Everything works and days latter continues to work.

Just to prove that buffering and network congestion or capacity are not issues I can use the Remote app to control the MacPro to play one song while the iPhone Music app connects and plays another song.


The conclusion is that i don't know what the problem is apart from that it must be something to do with wifi networking and can remedy itself.

Shut downs and start ups of devices (network or computer) may or may not help. Certainly in this case it has not proven necessary.


However it is necessary to shut down my terminal adaptor/router from time to time in order to regain internet connectivity speed.

I think that routers can hold out of date information and the best way to flush it is to shut them down.

They also flush and resynchronise certain registers themselves.





Apr 28, 2013 9:56 PM in response to Cody DH

I am experiencing something similar. however, i can play fine from my iPhone and my macbook pro. My iMac on the other hand skips, stutters and all of that stuff. it's not even recognizeable. any attempt to play music from the iMac using the ATV interface through the remote on my phone works fine except there is no volume control so i rarely use this. any ideas?

May 28, 2013 6:37 PM in response to Cody DH

Hi Guys,


I recently got similar issues. However i was pretty sure it wasnt the WiFi or network, because my Apple TV is connected via CAT6 on some switches.


I tried unplugging the HDMI cable and replugging it back in. And it seemed to have fixed it. It could be i was using a low quality HDMI cable (although i thought i wasnt). Hasnt happened since


I am using Airplay from my PC to my Apple TV which is connected to my Yamaha RX-V373


So i unplugged it on the AVR side and replugged it in. No more stuttering. Could have just been a mix of dirty signals.


Audio and video are both going through HDMI

Skips and Stutters while Streaming from iTunes

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