Q: Apple TV is useless

I downloaded/rented the movie straight to the ATV.

Thanks for your help on this issue, I did what you said and it didnt work then  went to another forum and found I had to hold down the Menu and Previous/Rewind (not the down arrow) buttons for 6 seconds, then it worked.  My ATV is now back to normal and working well.  I have just rented another movie and it was available to watch in minutes, all worked great.  Thanks to everyone on this forum, particularly vazandrew.  Gold star to you!!

No problem. Looking back on my notes that remote shortcut un-pairs the remote so that makes sense. Glad you have it working again

Netflix streaming on Apple TV doesn't work for more than 30 seconds before it stops with the comment "an error occurred loading this content."  My PC works great streaming Netflix.  AppleTV is no credit to Apple.

That looks to be something in the way some servers interact with the device, and doesn't affect everyone. It does have to be fixed but by both companies.

Download of today's apple tv upgrade resolved issues.  Apple TV working as expected.

I've consistently found that the Apple TV needs to be restarted regularly. This resolves many strange issues. Just press and hold Menu and Down on the remote for 6 seconds and then release.

Warning: Don't know about IOS 5 but on earlier versions this process produces a very loud "ping" sound so mute the sound first.

Sorry to hear you're having a poor experience.  That hasn't been what I've experienced, we just replaced an AppleTV 2nd generation that we've had since it came out with a 3rd generation, both work just fine.  Much as I'd like to think Apple makes ours especially awesome, it's just another unit off the shelf.

Take the unit to an Apple store and explain the problem.  Explain that you've got a new/modern router and no other networking issues, and hopefully they can exchange the unit for you.

Stop blaming the networks. It's a lazy response.

No it isn't. The fact remains that most issues do in fact come down to the network so to truly troubleshoot you need to have a look.

You are quite right vazandrew, I had huge issues with my ATV, to cut a very long story very short......changed my ISP and have not had any issues since, its working like a dream.  I was told by my my old network providor "definitely not the network speed etc, there is obviously an issue with the ATV".......IT WAS my network speed.  Since I have gone to a different network with higher download speeds it has been awesome.  The minute I changed over it worked beautifully.  Give it a go peeps, make sure of the network speed you will get before you change over, Apple actually gave me the speeds required to get the ATV working properly, so I made sure I was going to get that speed before I contracted to my to providor.

I wouldn't upgrade the software.  I updated to their latest software and now I can't AirPlay video from WatchESPN app to the Apple TV from an iPAD nor an iphone 4s that previously were able to do this without any problem.  I've google searched online and it seems a lot of other people are having a similar problem.  So far I haven't found a soluation other than going back to the old software.  Good luck with finding a soluation to your problem.

Likely that the app needs to be updated to be compatible

I don't understand why it would have to be updated unless apple changed the airplay thing.  While I can figure out most of my tech problems I am not a software programer so I'm sure that this sounds like a dumb question with those with more knowledge about this but it just doesn't add up .  Also, wouldn't the youtube airplay feature from going to the site on safari not function if this were the case, because I tested that out and it worked.  Anyways, I'll email espn and see what the say. 

If it was a software issue then a lot, if not most apps would be having the issue. Apple hasn't changed anything or we would have heard about it, if something changed then it's within the app most likely. Contacting the developer is your best bet.

It's the same with apps that aren't enabled for video airplay (and just stream audio), it's because the developer hasn't made this possible.