[Brucemck2]

Anyone else having extremely slow downloads on AppleTV HD rentals?


Last week it took 11 hours, and last night it took 7 hours, to download a single movie.


AppleTV support forums reporting quite a few problems around the country, starting shortly prior to Christmas.


Absolutely certain it is not my connection (speed tests confirm that I have 6-8mb download speeds) and virtually certain it is not TWC throttling back at their end, as I get much higher speeds off of iTunes downloads.


Appears that Apple is pointing the AppleTV downloads to problematic servers.


No obvious place to call to get it resolved either, as Apple doesn't make it easy to report these sorts of issues. (No phone number or email address provided with the units.)

 

[maxmuller]



Quote:
Originally Posted by Brucemck2 /forum/post/15515926


Anyone else having extremely slow downloads on AppleTV HD rentals?


Last week it took 11 hours, and last night it took 7 hours, to download a single movie.


AppleTV support forums reporting quite a few problems around the country, starting shortly prior to Christmas.


Absolutely certain it is not my connection (speed tests confirm that I have 6-8mb download speeds) and virtually certain it is not TWC throttling back at their end, as I get much higher speeds off of iTunes downloads.


Appears that Apple is pointing the AppleTV downloads to problematic servers.


No obvious place to call to get it resolved either, as Apple doesn't make it easy to report these sorts of issues. (No phone number or email address provided with the units.)

Send me a PM with your zipcode, internet service provider, which films you were seeing the issue with as well as the approximate date and time. I run the content engineering group for the iTunes Store at Apple. I'll have someone on this side open a ticket to investigate.

 

[kevivoe]



Quote:
Originally Posted by maxmuller /forum/post/15533137


Send me a PM with your zipcode, internet service provider, which films you were seeing the issue with as well as the approximate date and time. I run the content engineering group for the iTunes Store at Apple. I'll have someone on this side open a ticket to investigate.

Well done Max.

 

[ejak86]

Mine has been extremely slow. I checked my cable modem speed and it is great. Just a TV show download is taking me a few hours. It was never this way until a few weeks ago. Any help would be great.

 

[RobertMahle]

I have COX cable and internet in Hampton Roads (Williamsburg) Va. My AppleTV downloads have slowed also. A few months back it seemed I could start a HD download and begin watching it in 15 or 20 mins. Now it seems to take 2 hours minimum before I can start it. Everything else from the computer is normal.


Could Cox be throttling it? What are others normal start times for HD?

 

[Brucemck2]

This remains a widespread problem. Widespread reports of download speeds being so slow as to make the device essentially not useable.


I've had zero problems streaming Netflix at highest quality on the same hub.

http://discussions.apple.com/thread....38952&tstart=0

 

[Brucemck2]

Problems people are experiencing are not home network related. I'm fully wired to ATV.


Appears to be something related to Apple's delivery service being under capacity required.


Read the link above and you'll get an idea of how widespread the issue is geographically, and how frustrated ATV owners are with Apple's unresponsive response.

 

[bobpaule]

720p, you call that HD on this forum?


1080p at 24 fps, get a Vudu box and get

with the videophile crowd.

 

[miata]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bobpaule /forum/post/15942135


720p, you call that HD on this forum?


1080p at 24 fps, get a Vudu box and get

with the videophile crowd.

A lot of folks have 720p (usually 768) HDTVs and 720 is considered HD. My understanding is that the 1080p/24fps Vudu stuff cannot be streamed. That sort of kills the convenience. All the Apple TV stuff can be streamed with maybe a one minute delay before you can even start an HD download. If I want 1080p/24fps I'll play one of my own Blu-ray discs or one rented from Netflix. That is how I "get with the videophile crowd." Wait isn't Blu-ray the only absolutely true authentic HD now

 

[nded]



Quote:
Originally Posted by miata /forum/post/15955550


A lot of folks have 720p (usually 768) HDTVs and 720 is considered HD. My understanding is that the 1080p/24fps Vudu stuff cannot be streamed. That sort of kills the convenience. All the Apple TV stuff can be streamed with maybe a one minute delay before you can even start an HD download. If I want 1080p/24fps I'll play one of my own Blu-ray discs or one rented from Netflix. That is how I "get with the videophile crowd." Wait isn't Blu-ray the only absolutely true authentic HD now

You are misinformed about streaming 1080p - it is possible from the Vudu for HD titles, just not the HDX titles. The 1400+ HD movies on Vudu are 1080p/24fps and can be streamed as long as your internet service is 4MB or better.

 

[miata]



Quote:
Originally Posted by nded /forum/post/15958989


You are misinformed about streaming 1080p - it is possible from the Vudu for HD titles, just not the HDX titles. The 1400+ HD movies on Vudu are 1080p/24fps and can be streamed as long as your internet service is 4MB or better.

Thanks for the clarification. So, does anybody know how the PQ compare between Apple's HD and Vudu 1080p/24fps? I believe Apple's bitrate is around 5 Mbps. That is close to the bandwidth limit for many folks, and I wonder what the bitrate is for the Vudu HD streaming encodes. If the bitrates are similar, it could come down to whether you get a better image with Vudu's 1080p encodings or Apple's 720p encodings.


Has anybody done a A/B comparison between the HD streaming of Apple TV versus Vudu?

 

[PSound]

FYI, a post with links to show some 1080p (and higher) content at reasonable bitrates. More of a download level of bitrate for most today, but something that would be available for streaming at bitrates to the home increase.... although to tell the truth, I think that pre-cached downloads is probably the way to go.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post15901165

 

[miata]



Quote:
Originally Posted by PSound /forum/post/15959922


FYI, a post with links to show some 1080p (and higher) content at reasonable bitrates. More of a download level of bitrate for most today, but something that would be available for streaming at bitrates to the home increase.... although to tell the truth, I think that pre-cached downloads is probably the way to go.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...5#post15901165

The link seems to be for an altogether different system using Silverlight with 8 Mbps encodings. I haven't been able to google any direct comparisons between Vudu and Apple TV HD streaming. There is this link that shows problems with Vudu's HD Transformer encoding. I'm just wondering if there is anywy to get better streaming with a 6 Mpbs connection link than you get with Apple TV.

 

[bobpaule]



Quote:
Originally Posted by miata /forum/post/15955550


A lot of folks have 720p (usually 768) HDTVs and 720 is considered HD. My understanding is that the 1080p/24fps Vudu stuff cannot be streamed. That sort of kills the convenience. All the Apple TV stuff can be streamed with maybe a one minute delay before you can even start an HD download. If I want 1080p/24fps I'll play one of my own Blu-ray discs or one rented from Netflix. That is how I "get with the videophile crowd." Wait isn't Blu-ray the only absolutely true authentic HD now

Sure, the 768 plasma and an $3000 scaler are a nice way to go. Just pouring fuel to the fire, sorry me bad!


I am biased of course, watching a 110" screen there a noticeable diffrence betw 720p and 1080p.


Forget Blu-Ray, i am talking about $6 movies in 1080p. BTW, how many movies do you watch twice?

 

[miata]



Quote:
Originally Posted by bobpaule /forum/post/16046443


Forget Blu-Ray, i am talking about $6 movies in 1080p. BTW, how many movies do you watch twice?

I would say that I watch 3/4 of my movies more than once. Historically, I have buying about one title every week. Lately, with Netflix or Apple TV to preview movies I rarely buy movies that I don't watch twice. This is especially true since I started buyng HD media.


Today I own 160 HD movies that are of the highest video and audio quality that I can play anytime. I complement that with the free HD movies via Netflix streaming or Apple TV rentals that look plenty good on my 60" 1080p Kuro and can be played back instantaneously. I have a 6 Mbps internet connection, so playing an Apple HD movie is about the bitrate limit. If I wanted 1080p I would either have to wait which completely kills the convenience, or pay a whole lot more for a faster U-verse service. Going to 10 Mbps increases the price $20 a month. So, for me 720p is perfect trade-off between quality and convenience and cost.


What kind of internet bandwidth do you need to stream high quality 1080p movies?

 

[WyvernSting]

I would like to chime in here as well. Around the same time as the OP I started to have the same tremendously long download speeds for HD movies on my AppleTV. It's so frustrating. I used the troubleshooting tool that apple currently has available within AppleTV to send a test transmission and perhaps notify Apple of the problem... but I'm not of the opinion that they take those sort of things seriously.


I'm hoping that someone on this forum can point me in the right direction -- I either need to get it fixed or dump AppleTV.


Zip Code: 99352

Cable Provider: Charter

Movie: The Time Travelers Wife (Valentine's Day movie for the wife... took over 5 hours to download!)

Bandwidth: 20mbps (tested at 25mbps on Broadband.net)


We finally finished the movie at 12am local time... ridiculous. I could really use some help on this one.


Edit: I just realized this thread is 1 year old... but surprisingly I started having the same problem one year later... weird!


Thanks.

 

[integra_gsr98]



Quote:
Originally Posted by WyvernSting /forum/post/18137979


I would like to chime in here as well. Around the same time as the OP I started to have the same tremendously long download speeds for HD movies on my AppleTV. It's so frustrating. I used the troubleshooting tool that apple currently has available within AppleTV to send a test transmission and perhaps notify Apple of the problem... but I'm not of the opinion that they take those sort of things seriously.


I'm hoping that someone on this forum can point me in the right direction -- I either need to get it fixed or dump AppleTV.


Zip Code: 99352

Cable Provider: Charter

Movie: The Time Travelers Wife (Valentine's Day movie for the wife... took over 5 hours to download!)

Bandwidth: 20mbps (tested at 25mbps on Broadband.net)


We finally finished the movie at 12am local time... ridiculous. I could really use some help on this one.


Edit: I just realized this thread is 1 year old... but surprisingly I started having the same problem one year later... weird!


Thanks.

I've been attempting to watch 'The Hurt Locker' on my AppleTV for the last hour or so and having an absolutely horrid time with it as well. I have -never- had an issue up until this time today. I've got 25mbit download speeds and have confirmed them via speed test as well.

 

[riverst]

I'm trying to watch brides maids since yesterday. First attempt took almost 3 hours to download. I feel asleep, then Im trying again after it notified me it was done downloading and that I have 29 days left. I hit PLAY and it started downloading again saying the movie will be ready to play in 1 hour 23 min. I'm so mad at AppleTV.

Asking for suggestions, tips, advice, or whatever you can share to help.


Thanks in advance


Ps. I have a wired connection to the ATV

 

[tenthplanet]



Quote:
Originally Posted by riverst /forum/post/20996998


I'm trying to watch brides maids since yesterday. First attempt took almost 3 hours to download. I feel asleep, then Im trying again after it notified me it was done downloading and that I have 29 days left. I hit PLAY and it started downloading again saying the movie will be ready to play in 1 hour 23 min. I'm so mad at AppleTV.

Asking for suggestions, tips, advice, or whatever you can share to help.


Thanks in advance


Ps. I have a wired connection to the ATV

The fact it said it was done then said to wait and hour and 23 minute might mean a corrupted download. I've run into this once before and fixed it by unplugging the ATV for about 30 sec or so, this should clear out the buffer, it will try to download it again but it should play after it does. It's a rare glitch and I have only run into it once.

 

[Rob Jenkins]

boy I'd love to get help - I tried to watch The Hobbit. First time I pressed play - 540 hours to wait... it went up and down and in the end I gave up. The next night I got home and tried to watch - but by the time I got home - it had expired. Hmmm.


So I rent it again the next day - another $5.


I give up waiting and leave Apple TV on all night.


I finally get to it around 6pm and it's there ready to go. But my wife is busy so I stream a couple of podcasts while I wait for her. They are are already on my iMac so not downloading at all.


I watch 2 or 3 and an hour later she's ready.


We sit down and it's no longer there to watch. nope - it now says 53 minutes and bounces around while I sit there waiting, waiting and waiting.


Why?


Why can I watch Youtube or trailers or whatever. But iTunes via current gen Apple TV says 53 minutes? Why does it want me to initially wait 540 hours. Why does it say 53 minutes and 20 minutes later say 42 minutes??


I have done the network test = my internet works fine. it's just iTunes via Apple TV that is dismal.


I've checked and there are dozens of pages of forum posts complaining about this.


Apple you need to help us loyal fans out.


please


Regards


Rob Jenkins