Photo app on 4th gen Apple TV - problems downloading photos

The photos app on the new 4th generation apple tv has been a major disappointment. Every time we open the app the photos have to be downloaded fresh. For some reason despite a fast internet speed (50 MBPS) the photo download often just hangs and we can't look at our photos.

With the new apple tv having a hard drive, I don't understand why photos can't just be stored on the apple tv itself. There should at least be an option to download the photos rather than store them in the cloud, the same way you can do with music on your iPhone.

Beyond this, it is a shame we can only see shared albums. I assume this is an upgrade that will come at some point.

Is anyone else having this problem?