Apple TV download is really slow

I live in Sydney and am suffering the same issues. Rented movies that used to load almost instantly now take hours. TV shows that I have previously purchased and am trying to stream from the cloud are taking 20 mins to load up. My Internet speed is fine. I am able to stream purchased Apple HD content from my home server with no issues. My internal network is fine so please do not say it is something at my end. I spoke to a guy at the local Apple store and he said the servers in the US had some work done on them over the weekend and that could be why but he said they should be back up (here's a hint Apple why not warn people). Seems there's an issue.

Basically I'm frustrated. Does anyone have any information as to why things are so slow?

I live in a rural town in NZ and have exactly the same problem. Not an isolated incident.Nothing wrong with my internet connection, I chose apple tv cause it can be a hassle going into town and renting a DVD. Starting to think it's gonna be quicker to hop in the car, drive 20 minutes to town and 20 minutes back and watch a rented dvd. Will probably be finished watching the movie before the movie would finish downloading. Sort it out apple. This is ridiculous!!!!!!

Same issue here in Arizona.

Same issue in Dallas, Tx. I called apple support, but since it has been more than 90 days since I bought apple TV, they hung up on me. I wish i would have just bought a internet TV or blu ray player. This is tending to happen more and more often. It is not the network. speed test worked fine.

Same problem in Chicago. Went to watcha movie said something like 2 hours.wehad popcorn ready to go etc. so I downloaded the same movie on vudu and it loaded immediately. Apple has really been jerking me around lately too.

I sent in an iPhone for issues and they billed my card without authorization 211 dollars nd change for repairs. I had to call up to get it reversed and it still has not shown up on my card. On Monday I'm going to file a reversal with my bank.

Same issue in Southern CA. It used to work quickly and immediately start playing now the last 4 movies over the last a couple months take up to 2 hours to download. Who can wait for that? I am definitely going back to NetFlix! I have been burned too many times with Apple TV, purchasing a movie for a weekend night and then sitting waiting for it, giving up, and then watching something else.

Not sure what is up with Apple but it seems their support is lacking and they have a take it or leave it attitude.

Same problem in Melbourne Australia. Takes over an hour before I can start watching a movie. Used to be ok.

Having the same issue from AB Canada. trying to change the setting from 1080p to 720p slashed the waiting time from 2 hours to 1, still unacceptable.

a restart of ATV made the issue even worse, now it doesn't tell me how much time i have to wait! it's just "loading".

was hoping for some answers in this thread.

Yep - same problem in AB Canada at a different location than the poster above. On 2 different generation ATV units working across 2 separate wifi networks.

Same in Dublin, Ireland. Incredibly frustrating. Tried slower quality settings - rebooting modems etc. Ruined another evening - am thining of dropping apple tv altogether.

I too had the same issue here in PEI Canada. It didn't make any sense as I have 80 MBps download speed. I was waiting forever to download a movie. This might be a solution for everyone to try. Go to Settings/General/Network/Test Network and allow Apple TV to run the test. I did this and everything went back to normal and I was able to instantly see a movie. Hope this is a help 🙂

I've been having the same issue, I tried to rent the original Total Recall tonight (because i saw the latest one,and it was super bad) The Rental said 52 minutes before it would play, so i waited. After 52 minutes, i tried starting it and only got 10 minutes in, and the audio was off from the picture. So i tried buying it thru iTunes on my desktop, and the HD version says 6 hours to download (it's been 3, and now it says 7 hours to go) the SD said 3 hours to download (It's been 3 hours, and it says 4 hours to go)

I just finished watching the SD version using my PS3, and it took under 5 minutes to download the whole movie. So the problem is not my Internet. It is Apple. Looks like i will be throwing my 2 APV's in the garbage.

The Apple TV itself is the bottleneck. The problem is not bandwidth.

My home theatre system uses Apple TV for most content. I also use a MacMini for the few DVDs I have and for EyeTV television recording.

Same as all the posts to this thread - performance slowed badly the last few months.

However, I notice that if I download rentals and purchased movies through iTunes on the MacMini, it works as the Apple TV did before. That is, start the download and wait a minute or so and then watch the movie end to end without interruption.

Also, iTunes allows me to cache the full movie if I give myself a few minutes prior to the time I want to watch something.

Not great. But it works.

Melbourne Australia

Had same issue here in Atlanta but sdoneil's solution helped me! My rented movie downloaded immediately after I tested my network & I was able to watch it instantly. Thanks sdoneil!

Same exact issue with both of my ATV3s here in NY. It all seemed to start a few months back, immediately after the update where they introduced full HD previews. Tried all the same troubleshooting steps as everyone else. I even went as far as to revert the handling of my DNS back to my ISP (was using a third party). However, the only thing that worked was sdoneil's suggestion. Nice damage control, Apple! I completely agree with the other posters. These days, it seems Apple is becoming increasingly unprofessional in its handling of customer-facing issues.