Why is Apple TV 4 playback so choppy?

Question

Level 1

60 points

Why is Apple TV 4 playback so choppy?

I Have 5 Apple TV's and have had no issues with any of them. 2 are gen 1 devices and 3 of them are the small black gen 3 units.

I just purchased a new gen 4 and plugged it in to replace one of the gen 3 units. Setup went great. Connected by ethernet cable to an Airport Time Capsule and 56mbps Internet. Sees the Internet and everything seems normal, but playing my iTunes content from my iMac is almost impossible. Stops constantly for long periods of time, never seeming to cache ahead enough to play smoothly. After trying several movies, all with the same issues I disconnected it and plugged the gen 3 back in. Everything streamed smoothly. Same Apple movie purchases. Same network. Same settings. What gives with that? Shouldn't the new Apple TV be faster rather than impossibly slow?

Any ideas how can I speed it up?

Posted on Jan 18, 2016 10:17 PM

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Answer 1

Jan 19, 2016 3:45 AM in response to Adwiz

Is the Airport extending the network by wifi. have you tried it without the Airport.

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Answer 2

Adwiz Author

Level 1

60 points

Jan 19, 2016 7:41 AM in response to Winston Churchill

The Airport is the beginning of the network chain, plugged directly into the router. I have another new Airport base station in another room but this Apple TV and the iMac are connected by Ethernet. Speed tests show that the network is even faster than the 50mbps I'm officially supposed to get, and the gen 3 Apple TV runs everything blazing fast. Even the other gen 3 Apple TVs that are using WiFi are way faster than the new gen 4 Apple TV. Makes no sense to me.

You asked if I tried it without the Airport, but I wouldn't be able to do that and still stream my iTunes content, since it would need to be connected to my network for that.

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Answer 3

vazandrew

Level 8

40,348 points

Jan 19, 2016 8:56 AM in response to Adwiz

Test on another network

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Answer 4

jlamm

Level 1

5 points

Jan 19, 2016 9:43 AM in response to Adwiz

Hello Adwiz,

You should be able to wirelessly stream your iTunes content on your apple tv without the ethernet connection by going to settings<computers<turn on Home Sharing using the apple ID associated with the iTunes content you want to play. You will also need to go to settings<general<network, select Wi-Fi, input the network name/password of your home network to setup the wireless function of your apple tv. I am assuming you know this and I am missing what you are saying, but just in case... : )

1. setup wireless function of apple tv

2. use Home Sharing with same apple ID associated with your iTunes content to stream iTunes to apple tv

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Answer 5

Adwiz Author

Level 1

60 points

Jan 19, 2016 2:52 PM in response to jlamm

I Did set up wireless but opted not to use it. Why would I when a cabled cat 5 connection runs 20-25% faster than WiFi? My main reason for the post is to see if there's a known issue with the gen 4 running slower than the gen 3. I didn't even consider that possibility when I bought it but now I'm wondering. Have others noticed a similar thing? Or is it possible that I have a bogus device? Or is there some configuration issue I'm missing?

gen 3 Apple TV:

- connected to iMac via same cat 5 ethernet

- streams content smoothly

gen 4 Apple TV:

- connected to iMac via same cat 5 ethernet

- streams slowly

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Answer 6

vazandrew

Level 8

40,348 points

Jan 19, 2016 3:01 PM in response to Adwiz

The best way to test that would be to go to another network, it is working fine on my system

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Answer 7

Jan 19, 2016 10:37 PM in response to Adwiz

Adwiz: I have the exact same situation as you've described. I rented a movie yesterday on the ATV4 and the playback was simply awful with long pauses every few seconds. Lots of starts/stops. I persisted with this for 56 mins and got so tired that I ended up purchasing the movie on my iTunes, and waited for it to download to my Mac. Then using Home Sharing I played the movie without issues. The ATV4 connects via home Wi-Fi. I sent a Problem Report to the iTunes Store Customer Support describing this playback issue with the rented movie and asked for a full refund since I had to purchase the movie to get it to play back properly. They did give me a refund.

Today, I rented another movie via iTunes and waited for it to download. Then on my ATV4 I used Home Sharing to play it. It was awful with stops/starts but was not nearly as bad as the above (yesterday).

So out of desperation, I hooked up my ATV 3rd Gen unit and used it via Home Sharing to play the rented movie. Guess what ? .... it played flawlessly.

There's definitely something very weird going on with the ATV4. It's either a problem with the ATV4's buffering maybe, or maybe the ATV4 is driving my 5 year old 60" Sony Bravia TV too hard, or just maybe I've not got my ATV4 + TV setup for optimum performance, or maybe I need a better/faster TV for all the data the ATV4 is pushing at it..... just dunno what the issue is. Does the ATV4 push more data to the TV vs. the ATV Gen 3 maybe ?

I sure would like for this ATV4 playback issue to get resolved as it's driving me crazy.

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Answer 8

Jan 20, 2016 7:26 AM in response to Adwiz

Adwiz,

I have had this issue intermittently since purchasing my gen 4 Apple TV. The last time was last night when I watched The Martian, my most recent purchase. In each case, I was streaming a movie that had already been downloaded to my iMac. The first time it happened, I did a restart of the Apple TV, and the choppy playback went away. I have done that each time and it has worked each time. Perhaps this workaround will work for you. It's not a substitute for getting the issue resolved but at least you can watch your movie.

Randall

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Answer 9

Jan 20, 2016 5:44 PM in response to Adwiz

I Finally exchanged mine for a new one. Guess what same issue. Stored iTunes home sharing movies choppy playback. Ethernet or streamed AC choppy playback. Reboot temporary fix.

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Answer 10

vazandrew

Level 8

40,348 points

Jan 20, 2016 5:48 PM in response to SuperSizeIt

Did you have it tested at Apple before getting the new unit?

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Answer 11

Jan 20, 2016 6:14 PM in response to vazandrew

I Explained the problem and the genius seemed aware and decided to replace it with a brand new replacement. No arguments and painless exchange. This new one stutters too. Not as bad as the other one. Maybe two or three times during a viewing. Restarting or pausing then play fixes it for awhile. Then it starts all over again later. Apple TV 3 and 2 plays perfectly smooth vs ATV 4.

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Answer 12

Adwiz Author

Level 1

60 points

Jan 20, 2016 7:47 PM in response to SuperSizeIt

Looks like there's definitely some kind of problem with the gen 4 architecture. I purchased a whole new receiver (!!) and connected both the gen 3 and gen 4 Apple TVs at the same time. Ran some tests on the same downloaded content.

Low-res files streamed fine.

HD Apple-purchased movies are the ones that show the problems with buffering. The gen 3 unit buffers very nicely so you don't end up with the stops.

The gen 4 unit actually doesn't seem to buffer at all. The gray bar that shows how much is buffered never goes past the current playback location. When you pause a movie using the gen 3 ATV, the buffering continues. On the gen 4 device the buffering pauses as soon as the playback pauses. It never continues on to buffer more content. This may be the core of the issue.

Hoping that Apple is aware and has a fix planned. I'll call their support line tomorrow. Have had pretty good experiences when asking for this kind of tech support in the past. Once a tech called me back weekly to give me progress reports on a fix the team was working on.

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Answer 13

Jan 20, 2016 10:05 PM in response to Adwiz

Adwiz: I've noted the exact same thing with the ATV4. It does seems that the ATV4 buffering on the face of it is faulty I agree. I just wonder that such a blatant failure with the ATV4 buffering could be missed by Apple unless they felt the primary use of the ATV4 was for games which already reside in the ATV4's memory.

If enough of us complain about this issue hopefully Apple will address the issue for us movie players.

I've seen the ATV4 buffers data very well when using the Home Sharing where data is streamed from the Mac/iTunes to the ATV4 for playback. If data is being streamed off the internet such as when you purchase or rent a movie on the ATV4 then the internet download speed and buffering both appear to be an issue. With this in mind, I've adopted to rent and/or purchase my movies on iTunes and then use Home Sharing to play to the ATV4. This isn't a perfect solution but does seem to help quite a bit.

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Answer 14

Jan 21, 2016 2:22 AM in response to SuperSizeIt

SuperSizeIt wrote:

I Explained the problem....

What exactly did you explain, that you have a problem with your network at home or you thought the Apple TV was defective.

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Answer 15

Jan 21, 2016 2:25 AM in response to BarryXSharp

If enough of us complain about this issue hopefully Apple will address the issue for us movie players.

I think you might use your time more productively finding out what it is with your network and or set up that is causing the problem. There isn't a problem with the Apple TV (unless you actually have a defective one) and no amount of complaining will change that.

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