Apple TV is Downloading movie rentals very slowly

Writing to you from New Zealand. Did the same thing with the new iPad, 1080p movie rental, ready to play within a few minutes, tried to AirPlay to my 3rd gen Apple TV, no picture, just the soundtrack streaming like it was a music track, but could still watch the movie on the iPad. Bizarre.

Also writing to you from New Zealand. We have been having the same discussions on another thread. All the same issues. Don't think its based on country think Apple has a problem. We have had all our movie rentals refunded that didn't complete streaming. Would be a great system if the could get it to work properly. We recently installed the latest Apple TV software update and it has been better, not ideal but better. See the link below for New Zealand issues. Sent Apple TV the link also. Also would be exceptionally help full if Apple TV speed diagnostic actually showed a result. Maybe they don't wan it to !!!!!!

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3904600?answerId=18895713022#18895713022&ac_cid=tw123456#18895713?ac_cid=t w123456

I too am experiencing the same thing, but mainly on weekends when movies are obviously in higher demand. This is only a recent problem and it's nothing to do with my general Internet speed as I've conducted numerous speed tests when this issue occurs.

I am in Western Australia. Apple must be aware of the problem and I guess it will be only time until they upgrade more servers in my region to handle the traffic load. More and more people I know are getting Apple TV, so hopefully they'll get on to it soon.

We've even tried 720p content only but that doesn't seem to make a significant difference.

Love my Apple TV so this problem won't deter me, I'll put up with it until they fix it.

I am having the same issue here in India and so are others using apple tv here.

My question to everyone is, which store are you using? Are you using the US store or your own country store?

I am using the US store from outside the US and I'm thinking that, that might be the reason for this.

It's possible that apple has some kind of a geo IP throttle going on for IP's accessing the US store from outside the US.

This is pure conjecture at this point but knowing which store everyone is using might help shed some light on it.

Might as well add my similar experience to the pile. Located in Western Canada. ATV (3) connected via ethernet with download speeds of 45 mbps. Stop and go streaming of rentals and purchased content renders the service essentially unusable. This has degraded in the last 2 weeks or so. Prior to that, it was perfect. Streaming from my desktop is fine. My homework has been done regarding possible glitches at this end, including swapping out the ATV module. Senior advisor at Apple suggests that it "may" be a problem at their end although the engineers are telling him everything is normal . Hmmm!

We went to an Apple Store today and they denied having any knowledge of this problem. Our record is a download in 143 hours!!!! We are so disappointed in Apple right now.

Might as well add my similar experience to the pile. Located in Washington DC. ATV (3) connected via ethernet with download speeds of 25 mbps+ (verified) on Verizon FIOS. DNS automatically set by ISP. Stop and go streaming of purchased content, however HD netflix streams flawlessly. This has degraded in the last 2 weeks or so as well. Prior to that, it was perfect. Streaming wirelessly on macbook pro, macbook air, ipad 1, ipad 3 etc. all work fine.

This is my problem. My friends are not having this issue.

My connections appears to be good.

I'm located in San Diego and not in another country.

Message was edited by: TuneTalk

Took mine in to an Apple Store. Movies downloaded quickly there. Since my ATV 2 downloaded movies nearly instantly and the download speed ground to a crawl the instant I purchased ATV 3 I can only conclude that the new antenna in ATV 3 is far more prone to interference.

PS - the one friend I have with ATV 3 IS having the same problem whereas with his ATV 1 he had none.

Like everyone else here, having multiple issues with AppleTV. I go to iTunes on my iPad to download a rental (ironically, the documentary on Steve Jobs) and it is taking 4 hours to download. Additionally, I spent another $4 to rent directly from my ATV because it doesn't recognize my iPad. It charged me, but I can't find it anywhere on ATV. WTH?!?! I don't understand. Add to all this, when I access iTunes on my MacBook, it doesn't show any purchases of this item. So angry. VUDU works great! *** APPLE!!!???

I am in Melbourne, Australia with the same as all the above.

After renting a movie, and when I attempt to download / play, I get an error advising to try again later. once I eventually get the download to start, it takes around the 3 hours to download (Internet is 2M/2M).

What makes it more frustrating, once the movie is ready to be watched, start playing it, pause it to come back later, the cache gets cleared, and I have to go through the pain all over again!

I will be interested to see if we get any replies from apple in this forum!

What is your connection speed (speedtest.net)?

Check for interference using istumbler or netstumbler

Ensure you are using your ISPs DNS

There is no accessible storage so if other content is accessed or the device turned off the rental will be flushed requiring reload.

This is a user forum so you won't get a response from Apple here.

I'm in Sydney, and experiencing the same thing.

I had an Apple TV 1, and upgraded to latest model Apple TV so can Airplay from all devices.

Since the upgrade, the stream speeds are so bad, I just don't even bother any more.

I was a huge advocate of apple TV, and now just have the ***** about it.

Sort it out please apple!

BTW - speed test confirmed at 8mb download - so it's not local hardware or connection - aside from Apple TV.

/rexi98.

Check for interference and DNS

It is definitely an AppleTV issue. I have exactly the same problem and it is NOT country specific. Initially the unit works well. Now, after about 6 months, downloads are painfully slow. So I tried the following: I started an episode from a rental series on my apple TV and at the same time I started downloading the same episode on my iPad. Before I could get to a stage where I could start watching the episode on Apple TV the episode was completely downloaded on my iPad. In fact, I could download 10 episodes on my iPad while I watched the series on my AppleTV because it would stop for about 10 minutes every 5 minutes of watching. And by the way, my AppleTV unit is connected with an Ethernet cable and I tested the cable and the connection and they are perfect. So the problem is with the unit itself. AppleTV's "Download Test" is a joke. It always gives you the message "Download Successful".

If Steve Jobs was still alive he would have fired a bunch of people by now over this. I have been an avid Apple fan for 15 years. Should I now reconsider this?

Apple you need to fix this issue or shutdown .......