why does ATV take so long when trying to rent a movie?

[mrjayd]

Before the last upgrade, i could rent something and watch it instantly. But since the last update, its seems to take forever like it has to download the whole movie or something first. How can I fix this or remove the last update.

[waw74]

i remember seeing something here about an upgrade and wired ethernet not playing well together, not sure if that's been fixed yet or not.
Try unplugging the ethernet cable and going wi-fi.

also for good measure, reboot your modem and router.

[mrjayd]

Originally Posted by waw74

i remember seeing something here about an upgrade and wired ethernet not playing well together, not sure if that's been fixed yet or not.
Try unplugging the ethernet cable and going wi-fi.

also for good measure, reboot your modem and router.

Well I did have that issue when doing the update. And when I unplugged the ethernet it updated just fine. But wired or wireless, it still takes hours before I can watch a movie I selected to rent.
Is there any way of downgrading the firmware back to the old version?

[Jetson]

Originally Posted by mrjayd

Well I did have that issue when doing the update. And when I unplugged the ethernet it updated just fine. But wired or wireless, it still takes hours before I can watch a movie I selected to rent.
Is there any way of downgrading the firmware back to the old version?

My, that is an annoying problem.

Complain to Apple. It might help.

[Avatar74]

One thing to check... Run speedtest.net. There are occasions when the problem is my ISP narrowing the bandwidth, throttling users, etc. and other times when I'm getting 30Mbps throughput but the movie is still taking forever.

In the latter scenario, try an obscure release... If every release you try to rent takes forever, then Apple's pipe is clogged. If only a particular movie does it (and I've noticed this with popular new releases) then there may be a large number of users trying to access that file (however many times it may be mirrored it's still finite).

[mrjayd]

Originally Posted by Avatar74

One thing to check... Run speedtest.net. There are occasions when the problem is my ISP narrowing the bandwidth, throttling users, etc. and other times when I'm getting 30Mbps throughput but the movie is still taking forever.

In the latter scenario, try an obscure release... If every release you try to rent takes forever, then Apple's pipe is clogged. If only a particular movie does it (and I've noticed this with popular new releases) then there may be a large number of users trying to access that file (however many times it may be mirrored it's still finite).

Thanks I just moved and I am getting pretty consistent 18M connection. And it happens on every movie I have tried. And again, it all started with the last update. Before the update, It never did this once to anything I rented. Everything was instant. Click "but movie" and watch it in seconds.

[blueroom]

I rented two movies on my MBP within minutes of each other, one Samsara took almost 4 hrs before it was ready to play, the other Taken 2 took only a few minutes.

It could be a problem at the source.

[Avatar74]

Originally Posted by mrjayd

Thanks I just moved and I am getting pretty consistent 18M connection. And it happens on every movie I have tried. And again, it all started with the last update. Before the update, It never did this once to anything I rented. Everything was instant. Click "but movie" and watch it in seconds.

What format are you defaulting to? 720p? 1080p? If 1080p, have you tried bumping down to 720p as a test?