Caching issues etc - AppleTV 4th Generation

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Level 1

15 points

Caching issues etc - AppleTV 4th Generation

Hi

Well I have unboxed my Apple TV 4th Generation and so far its a mixed bag. I have replaced a full functional Apple TV 3rd Generation with it. Current annoyances are:

1. It would not device setup from an iPhone6s Plus but would from an iPad Air2.

2. It only variably allowed the iOS device to be used for the keyboard in setup mode.

3. The glass trackpad is quite hard to perfect when playing a film or show as it ends up trying to fast forward or rewind when I am trying to bring up the menu.

4. Where have all the chapters gone?

5. My old Apple TV would cache a movie completely or to 8GB max. Then cache further as the film was watched. Occasionally it would loose the iTunes collection and I would need to reboot the ATV3 to clear the cache and resume the movie (this is HD stuff). I really expected the new ATV to cache all my films easily with 64GB available. HOWEVER, even on 3-4GB files (like Sherlock S01E01) it will only cache up to 5 mins ahead and then pause the playback to cache more. This is on a wired ethernet connection with the setup identical to the prior setup (ethernet to dedicated (single function) mac mini running the iTunes library).

6. It has taken over my Sony 1080p TV! It turns it and the amp off when it sleeps. I can no longer change the scene settings on whatever HDMI port it is connected to. I used to be able to change the scene select to cinema for movies, 24fps as needed and also dynamic for TV, etc. Also the TV seems to dislike whatever the ATV4 is doing sometimes as I can see it flickering to adjust the light output as if its in auto mode or cannot decide (I never allowed that on old ATV3 and always ran it in Cinema mode like my PS3, i.e. not allow any auto adjustment of the picture setting). I can find a few HDMI settings about colour and sound but they don't stop this weird HDMI take over.

7. It makes the TV call the input source Player1 no matter what I do...it was previously manually named as Apple TV. This links to 6.

8. I have not tried many apps yet but some of my iOS+ apps are automatically available (like Alto's Adventure)...nice but stuttery on its home menu screen.

9. What happened to the trailer app? I liked that as did my kids.

10. Siri cannot search my iTunes library, just keeps trying to get me to buy stuff I already own or stream it instead of getting it from home sharing.

Currently rather frustrated.

So...

Any ideas how to get TV control back so I can manually control the scene select function to prevent the flickering (see 6 and 7 above)?

Any ideas on how to make it cache properly? 64GB should be enough...current experience below ATV3 level (see 5 above)

Comments welcomed.

Thanks

Posted on Oct 31, 2015 12:15 PM

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Answer 1

LBJ_UK Author

Level 1

15 points

Oct 31, 2015 12:22 PM in response to LBJ_UK

Oh yeah...almost forgot. I cannot control it with any iOS devices and cannot seem to use them or link them to act as controllers, which I thought I was supposed to be able to do.

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Answer 2

Nov 28, 2015 7:27 AM in response to LBJ_UK

RE: #5 I have the same problem with my Apple TV 4. I spent 90 minutes on the phone with two different tiers of Apple support and they finally decided to send me a new device. I got the new device but unfortunately, the problem persists. I have noticed that playing the movies I purchased from apple load just fine. I can see them quickly queue up along the status bar just fine. But when I play content I have created. Such as my HD movies, the y do the same things – “it will only cache up to 5 mins ahead and then pause the playback to cache more.” Even when I plugged the apple TV directly to my brand new iMac.

At the time I’m writing this, over 130 views on your post but I cannot find any other posts on the net about this. Hopefully its just a bug that can be squashed.

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Answer 3

LBJ_UK Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 29, 2015 3:13 AM in response to Kevin Branch

Hi Kevin,

On #5 - Thanks you are the only one to have replied. I can report that I still have the issue but still primarily on Sherlock 1080i based episodes. I have tried various re-encode options to no effect. Its not a DTS or HD sound related phenomenon. I agree that iTunes purchased items work fine as does SD material. Although even these only cache for short sections although the ATV4 keeps ahead of the playback zone. There is never the complete caching as noted with the older ATV3, which would easily hold a 8GB file and allow forward and backward moves with ease.

Having said that I have only had an issue with one or two other HD movies during playback that was annoying beyond my Sherlock experience. I have found that it relates to either waking the device up from sleep and/or pausing a lot for the kids and so on. Now I always restart before use and make sure I have everything to hand and no requirement for pausing during a film. However this action does not change the frequency of pausing in the 1080i based material.

All rather useless.

On #3 & 10 - I can say that the trackpad can be mastered or fixed by 9.0.1 OS update! But it is still useless for scrolling down long lists of movies. I literally have 100s in my collection, all purchased I may add. The trackpad just isn't designed for speed scrolling like holding down or up on the older ATV3 remote. My family cannot use at all. Siri still won't find my collection and search it.

On #6 & 7 - I solved the HDMI issue by disabling multiple options in HDMI settings and forcing a single HDMI standard output (RGB High for me).

On #9 - I still cannot find a trailer app, but the US has one I hear. Presume its a copyright issue?

On #4 - I am still at a loss as to where the chapters have gone on the progress bar...its really hard to jump forwards or backwards in nice chunks. I have brought up a chapter list from the top of the screen once but on most items its not there even when I know there are chapters.

Other annoyances - sound...often needs to be on much higher volume than other sources, its bass heavy and can distort unlike the ATV3 with the same source.

I am considering reverting back to ATV3 for my family's sanity.

Finally, I have not contacted Apple over this as I think this is clearly software and a design fault. I don't think there is a hardware issue as it performs faultlessly at times and especially with iTunes purchased content. The cynical part of me says this is just a sales pitch for iTunes rather than a home TV play. I love Apple but this is truly the worst and most frustrating experience I have ever had. I have considered PLEX as an option but not tested yet as I am all setup for an iTunes based system.

On the caching issue, I think the design for games is 200MB download then redownloads in chunks for extra material. I think this is the way the films/tv are handled too. as the amount cached is not time dependent but file size dependent. A short will cache far more time on the progress bar, whereas a large HD file will only cache for seconds to minutes ahead of the playback position. Then there is the weirdness regarding a 1080i source transcoded to anything else.

So again it MUST be software. Be it codecs or whatever. iOS 9.x works fine on iPads/iPhones and streams effortlessly, playback on Macs directly or streaming is fine, via iTunes, VLC or Quicktime, no issue. ATV3 and yes even ATV2 is fine. Heck even Windows works! Only the ATV4 misbehaves. I am hoping a major tvOS 9.1 update will fix.

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Answer 4

LBJ_UK Author

Level 1

15 points

Nov 29, 2015 3:21 AM in response to LBJ_UK

My final thought is that it may be worth trying AC wireless over ethernet. I have not tried yet but I do have new time capsules with AC after doing an upgrade across my home. So perhaps the ethernet stack is poorly implemented or something. One to test...

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Answer 5

Dec 3, 2015 10:00 AM in response to Kevin Branch

Kevin Branch wrote:

RE: #5 I have the same problem with my Apple TV 4. I spent 90 minutes on the phone with two different tiers of Apple support and they finally decided to send me a new device. I got the new device but unfortunately, the problem persists. I have noticed that playing the movies I purchased from apple load just fine. I can see them quickly queue up along the status bar just fine. But when I play content I have created. Such as my HD movies, the y do the same things – “it will only cache up to 5 mins ahead and then pause the playback to cache more.” Even when I plugged the apple TV directly to my brand new iMac.

At the time I’m writing this, over 130 views on your post but I cannot find any other posts on the net about this. Hopefully its just a bug that can be squashed.

Actually if you look under buffering (rather than term caching) there are alot of us with this issue on our new APTV 4's It seems that HD, DRM protected movies do this for many. It sure happens with recent movies I got from Itunes and want to watch. The solution short term has been to watch the purchased movie via the itunes store rather than homeshare. But this is not a good long term solution. Most testing points to this being a software issue wth APTV 4, as users APTV 2 and 3's always worked fine -- so also not a network issue.

Apple needs to fix this for sure. My Sony system also gets controlled like yours a bit I but there is a portion of the software/controller that is supposed to allow you to control your TV and stereo system if they are recent enough to allow a different controller device. I have found it allows me to do a bit more control of the system with my touch device. Yes phone app does not work with 4, sometimes the interaction with my stereo/TV system seems weird.

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Answer 6

Ishap

Level 1

75 points

Dec 3, 2015 4:31 PM in response to LBJ_UK

Are y'all taking about playing content from iTunes, using Home Sharing?

In my experience movies from the iTunes Store have been cached just like my ATV3. I haven't noticed any performance issues with local (iTunes + Home Sharing) video.

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Answer 7

Dec 10, 2015 6:24 AM in response to Kevin Branch

#5 UPDATE: I'm happy to report that installing the December 8, 2015 tvOS 9.1 update fixed my buffering issue. (previously referred to as caching or queuing)

Happy Holidays everyone.

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Answer 8

LBJ_UK Author

Level 1

15 points

Dec 23, 2015 10:58 AM in response to Kevin Branch

Hi Kevin,

Yes I too can confirm that the caching/buffering/streaming issue is now resolved with 9.1 update. Sherlock 1080i plays flawlessly. Good news all round! Finally surpassed ATV3 and ATV2! About time IMO!

Still find negotiating big lists hard with the new remote. Not tried the update apple remote app yet.

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Answer 9

imbucki

Level 1

4 points

Feb 5, 2016 12:19 PM in response to LBJ_UK

Chapter functionality has severely deteriorated in Apple TV 4. First, without re-tagging video files with an updated metadata utility (Subler for Mac OS and MetaX for Windows) Apple TV 4 will not recognize chapter structures. Second, once you rectify the chapter situation you will find that you are unable to skip chapters without a cumbersome three or four swipe process. Gone is the ATV3 functionality where you can skip chapters with the push of a button.

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