Apple TV is Downloading movie rentals very slowly

Just purchased an ATV a couple of weeks ago and thus far like other comments on this thread have been sorely disappointed. Likewise downloads are excruciatingly slow and this with a 32 mbs download speed. Last night we tried repeatedly to watch The Hunger Games, and gave up in frustration. However since we also have a TV with Vudu enabled streaming we paid yet again another fee to watch it. Vudu even with wireless connection started immediately and played without one single hiccup or stall. Note there was not even a millisecond of delay it started immediately.

Whats just as important was the improved image quality via Vudu vs ATV. With Vudu the film was more resolute, deeper richer color fidelity, improved shadow detail by a long shot which rendered the movie more 3D like. In previous downloads of movie rentals with the ATV I had thought the darker values to be more noisy and rather posterized looking and again felt the same thing through the first 5-6 minutes of watching the film last night via ATV but it wasn't until we switched venues that this was painfully obvious.

I am astonished not only of the poor quality Apple product but also its rather poor iTunes service. It is worth noting however after watching the entire film via Vudu, I revisited the ATV setup, mind you this was just past midnight and for what ever reason the stream after a slow start did seem to go much better, however image quality was still noticeably inferior to the Vudu showing.

For the last 2 days it has benn fantastically fast. Maybe Apple are fixing it. I am in the UAE (Dubai / Abu Dhabi). I was having the same issues earlier but for the last couple of days it is back to normal. Maybe Apple have solved the issue at the servers serving the Middle East. I hope they fix all their servers.

I'm here in Central Indiana, USA - and it's dreadfully slow for me as well. Disappointed really. I have 25 MBPS down and 5 MBPS up so there is no reason it should take 8+ hours to download a single movie.

I have also been having this probem with my ATV2 (Calgary, Canada). It started out of the blue about a month ago. Prior, it would stream trailers and movie downloads instantly but now its unusable. Even trailers constantly rebuffer. I tried to rent a movie on the ATV yesterday and was given a notification that it would be ready in over an hour(?!). Instead, I downloaded it through my Xbox and it streamed perfectly (at 1080p no less, compared to 720p on the ATV2). All of my other intenert apps (XBox, Netflix on ATV, Macbooks, iTunes on Macbooks) are functioning perfectly and fast. Irritating to say the least.

Use Google’s Public DNS Server To Fix Apple TV Streaming Problems

1. Navigate to Settings >> General >> Network and select Configure TCP/IP.

2. Select “Manually” next to Configure IP.

3. Dont change the IP address or the Subnet Mask and Router Address. Just click "Done".

4. Set the DNS Address screen with the following: 008.008.008.008 and click “Done.”

You should now be able to stream more smoothly on your Apple TV.

If this works for you, please buy a cup of coffee for a complete stranger or some other selfless, random act of kindness.

I tried using that Google's DNS server months ago, based on another thread on this topic. No dice. The problem is sporadic enough that you can fiddle with something, next thing you know it looks like things are working… and come back an hour later and the next video is lagging again.

I'd have been shocked to discover that this is a DNS issue, considering how the Internet works: once you resolve a domain into an IP, your Internet connected device will tend to hold onto that for subsequent access: it's not like it'd be trying to resolve DNS on every packet. Unless the domain's Time To Live is minuscule… but I can't imagine how slow a DNS server would have to be - or how weirdly a client would be using DNS - in order to cause a problem like this.

But, hey, I'm at the point where I'd try burning a goat on an altar.

I agree that it's not a DNS performance issue. This problem is probably caused by a bad streaming server somewhere on Netflix's CDN (Content Delivery Network). The DNS points your Apple TV based on location and availability. (it's more complicated than that but go with me here...) By using Google's DNS, you get a different streaming server. That is, of course, a wild guess and is not verifiable by me. But, it makes sense so I'm going with it.

It has worked well for dozens of people that I've suggested it too. I'm sorry it didn't work for you those months ago. Try it again, maybe?

Also, two pigeons or a duck work better for high-tech problems. Goats are better for business openings and weddings. 😉

One more unhappy customer here I'm afraid. Been looking forward to watching Lord of the Rings on the new TV with the kids tonight - got 5 minutes in and it starts buffering. I'll be here till Christmas if I wait for it to download. Surely Apple are aware of the problem?

this is clearly an itunes to atv streaming issue

Same here. Totally blows. What gives apple?

One way to help apple track this is to 'report a problem' on itunes when purchased movies don't stream properly. I have had a charge reversed (refund) when reporting streaming issues affecting movie playback. I have also had a charge reversed when one of the family accidently bought the french version of a movie. Mind you we had immediately rented the english version. No streaming problem on that.

iTunes > Store menu > View my account > purchase history > click the error beside the rental

<Report a problem> button

Not sure how one would indicate problems streaming... or the itunes live concert... which is pretty spotty in my experience.

Uk.

I've been trying to watch a rented film with the family for 3 days.

First attempt to rent..... And last.

I'm having the same issue.. I have an apple tv 3 I just bought. It doesn't matter if I connect it wirelessly through my airport express, or wired directly to the airport express LAN port... Hulu, youtube, etc. all work fine... Just itunes content. It doesn't matter if it's via home sharing or standard movies\etc. a 45min tv show takes 40+ minutes to buffer!! a 2 hour move? 2+ hours.... My internet is comcast 25mb\s, wireless is Wireless N, and even with ethernet... this doesn't make any sense...

I've tried restoring the device, resetting the device, running network test, changing DNS, wired, wirelessly... Nothing matters... I just canceled cable and bought all my shows on itunes.. heavily regretting that decision. I come home from work, sit down to relax, and have to wait an hour before I can watch tv???

Funny someone mentioned hunger games.. We tried to rent that movie too as our first through apple tv... 930 at night, kid sleeping, and says we needed to wait 2.5 hours to watch it... we just switched on the xbox (connected wirelessly btw), and were watching it in HD within 3 minutes... got my money back from apple. dissapointing though, movies are cheaper. Plus why doesn't home sharing even work? I'm streaming from a 2011 imac I7 connected wirelessly at 300mb\s with no other traffic on that computer.. Very close to router and great connection... Really sounds like an ATV issue...

Working in enterprise level IT for the last 15 years of my life, and previously being an electrical engineer... doesn't make sense to me :-p fix the firmware already... almost like it's downloading slow on purpose to save\reduce bandwidth for... ?

Since running into the same initial problems discussed so thoroughly here as well as my own previous post, on a couple of occasions we have simply restarted the ATV 3, then went right back to the same movie/tv show to try stream it again and voilla it worked fine. While I'm not ready to go out on a limb and declare this is THE FIX clearly it has alleviated the issue at least a couple of times and certainly deserves some further testing and consideration. No idea why this would even matter, but…

Oddly whenever we have clicked on the menu for movie trailers all of those trailers stream instantly and in HD content, however when trying to view the same via iTunes even a two minute trailer, preview will balk. I find this extremely odd and it points to the iTunes server more than the ATV 3 itself. On the other hand its my understanding the pervious two iterations of the ATV did not have this issue, albeit they were working in 720p only.

In any case it would be interesting if others also tried the "restart" option in General Settings to see if this eleminates slow balky streams from a fresh wake up from sleep mode.

Hope this helps.

I too have experienced the "wake up" by re-starting as you described. Additionally, as mentioned in other posts, choosing Settings>General> Network> Test Newwork and performing the test tells you nothing but seems to give everything a shake. A movie rental last evening streamed quickly to the half way point and then stopped. The network test was performed, the movie restarted and the last half (about 1 hr to go) streamed to the end in about 10 minutes of viewing.

These are clearly not solutions and I also agree the sporadic nature of these problems points to server issues more than anything else.